Overheard
by hujwernoo
Summary: The knights, Arthur and Gwen are planning a surprise for Merlin...only to overhear a shocking conversation between Merlin and Agravaine. Spoilers up to 4x02, really just an excuse to write out a plot bunny I had. Inspired by 'Poison Truth' by Lovable Loner. Warning: Brief but graphic violence.
1. Chapter 1

Arthur shifted uncomfortably in the cramped space.

Really, this was all Gwaine's fault.

Arthur didn't _mean_ to forget that today was Merlin's birthday. He also didn't mean to actually go along with the madcap 'surprise' Gwaine had set up. Namely, the knights, Arthur and Guinevere ambushing Merlin when he was polishing armor and wishing him a happy birthday.

As in, _literally_ ambushing. Hence waiting, _crouching_, actually, in the small space in the armoury for Merlin to get on with his chores already.

When he was king, Arthur really was going to order larger supply closets. He put it on his mental list that, sadly, he would probably get to do before too long. Uther had barely spoken more than several words in months, and it was the general consensus that he would either step down or quietly die. Even the Dorocha a while ago had failed to rouse him.

Which, now that Arthur thought about it, was really why he was doing this. He needed a bit of fun. What better way to achieve that than messing with Merlin a bit?

Brushing the curtain aside a little, he checked in the armoury again. Another thing. Supply closets should really have doors. Even if the heavy curtains that were there instead blended into the wall so well that many new recruits had trouble finding it.

There. Footsteps, obviously Merlin's. Finally. The knights and Guinevere tensed, getting ready to jump out. Arthur could practically feel Gwaine's infectious grin.

Arthur pulled the curtains a bit wider, and felt everyone shuffling silently to peek out the small crack.

Merlin went over to one of the racks of weapons and hefted the axe Arthur liked out of it's holdings. Arthur felt, absurdly, pleased. He had never really been sure that Merlin had not been foisting polishing onto other servants or just skipping it altogether. It was good to know he actually did work.

Merlin paused, and set the axe down on a bench. Then, carefully, he picked Lancelot's sword off the rack.

Arthur tensed. He felt everyone else do so as well.

There was a look on Merlin's face. It was the deepest grief someone could express by expression alone, and it was heartwrenching.

Arthur cursed himself. How could he have forgotten? Out of all of them, Merlin had seemed the closest to the dead knight. They had all been grieving, but it had been tempered by knowing it was a noble death and there was nothing they could have done.

Merlin, however, had seen it. He'd had to watch his friend sacrifice himself, and was probably blaming himself for not stopping him.

How could Arthur not have noticed?

Turning his head just a little, Arthur could see in the shadows of the torches that everyone else was thinking the same thing.

Guinevere made a move to get up, perhaps to go out and comfort him, but another set of footsteps broke through the air.

Something about them made Arthur put a hand on her shoulder.

"Ah, Merlin."

Oh. It was Agravaine. Arthur felt a little silly for being apprehensive of his uncle.

"Agravaine."

Everyone stilled.

Merlin's voice sounded...cold.

It was such a not-Merlin thing to be cold, distant, almost _angry_. But that was what Merlin sounded like. His face was turned away from the curtain, but Arthur could read the way his shoulders were tensed, his hands were still, his body shifting almost imperceptibly into a stance Arthur knew well.

Merlin looked ready for an attack.

Arthur only recognized it from knights and enemies taking that stance. Never, ever had he seen Merlin looking ready for an attack...or ready to launch one.

Gwaine took hold of the fabric of the curtain, a half-second away from jumping to Merlin's aid even though he didn't quite know why.

"Oh, don't be so hostile."

Dimly, Arthur realised there was something profoundly _wrong_ about the way Agravaine said those words, even though they were perfectly innocuous.

"There's nobody here. I think we can do without the pretend for once."

There was a pause.

"Then I won't waste time."

The change was jarring. Every drop of friendliness vanished from his uncle's voice, and it took on a mocking, cruel edge. Arthur's head jerked back from the force of it, and almost overbalanced. He felt Percival grab his shoulders to keep him upright.

"I will give you an ultimatum."

Agravaine was no longer the sympathetic, supporting uncle he had grown to know. It was obvious, even from simply listening, that this man was cold and hard.

"Either you will step aside, or I will make you."

"You mean you'll kill me."

The sentence was delivered so casually Arthur almost didn't understand it's meaning.

"Yes."

This was not happening. This could _not be happening_. He _trusted_ Agravaine. Agravaine wouldn't do this to him. He wouldn't kill Merlin. There had to be a mistake.

"You'll have to try and kill me, then."

The reply was so blunt, so direct, Arthur was stunned.

He was vaguely aware that the five people in the closet had stopped breathing, himself included.

"Try?"

"A lot of people have tried to kill me. None of them really succeeded."

_What?_

"Ahh..." Agravaine moved into their field of vision, and Merlin turned to look at him, so that both of their faces were visible through the crack. Merlin was impassive, his expression might have been carved of stone. Agravaine had tempered his outburst of cruelty with a look of thoughtfulness.

"Yes, I imagine there would be...Tell me, how many times have you saved Arthur's life?"

The world was skewed, everything twisting and turning and no longer making sense. His uncle was making death threats, Lancelot's death was hitting harder than ever, and Merlin was being...as un-Merlin-like as it was possible to be. Now Agravaine was asking how many times Merlin had saved Arthur's life?

"Two that he knows of."

_That he knows of?_ Yes, Merlin had pulled him away from the knife thrown by the old sorceress, and drunk the poison for him, but that was it-

"How many that he doesn't?"

"Dozens, at least. I've lost count."

Arthur felt as if blasted by an unexpected windstorm. Merlin had saved his life _dozens_ of times? So many he had _lost count_? When had this happened?

"Oh." Agravaine was less shocked, but still obviously surprised.

There was a very pregnant pause.

"Going by that information," Agravaine said, recovering quickly, "once you are dead there would be very little trouble killing Arthur."

Arthur felt dizzy.

No. This wasn't happening.

But it was.

"More than a little. You'd still have to actually kill Arthur. He's the best warrior in Camelot."

"True. Except...if you're dead, you won't be able to test his food."

This time, the silence was longer. Agravaine had a small smile on his face, and Merlin's mask had cracked a bit.

"That is why you're always late with his meals, of course. I've seen you. You might have actually found poison a few times, even. How many?"

"Four." Merlin's voice was quieter now.

Arthur was reeling. He was legendary for rebuking Merlin over his tardiness. He often arrived so late the food was barely hot anymore. It was one of the most commonly heard complaints from the prince in Camelot.

And Merlin was late because he was testing for poison. And found it. _Four times._

"You see? If you had been...indisposed, let's say, Arthur would be dead four times over." There was a slight chuckle in the words as if the thought amused him.

It probably did.

"Think on it, Merlin. At the very least, you could live."

Agravaine turned to the door.

"Agravaine."

Merlin's face was stone again.

"Know this." Merlin's voice was bare of any warmth. It sounded as if ice had formed over the words, turning them hard and hateful. Yet every syllable rang with truth and loyalty. "I don't care if you're crowned King or if I die doing it; if you harm anyone I care for, I will kill you."

Arthur knew Merlin was speaking the truth. Possibly the most honest truth he had ever said. Even Agravaine seemed to falter for a second as he strode towards the door.

Then the traitor was gone.

Merlin stayed still for a second, then let out a heavy breath. The tension and anger drained away, leaving him looking forty years older than he should have been.

Slowly, as if under a great weight, he put Lancelot's sword back on the rack, as well as Arthur's axe.

He rested his hand on the sword for a moment.

"I'm sorry."

Then he left the armoury, leaving his unseen audience stunned behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

"What was that?"

For once, Gwaine didn't sound as if he was understanding a joke nobody else got.

There was a buzzing in Arthur's ears. He realized distantly that he was sitting on the bench in the armoury, somehow traversing the distance between it and the curtain. Everyone was standing around looking as if they had been hit over the head. It was an odd expression on them, more suited to Merlin.

Right. Merlin, who was apparently not all Arthur believed him to be. Quite a bit more, in fact.

"Arthur?"

Guinevere was there, sitting next to him, staring at him anxiously. She hesitantly put a hand on his shoulder.

He looked uncomprehendingly at her for a moment, and mumbled.

"What?"

"I-" Arthur swallowed. "He, um, wants to kill uh - me."

'Us'. He had almost said 'us'. But that wasn't true. It was him Agravaine wanted to kill, that much was clear. Merlin was simply standing in the way. Interfering.

"Mate..."

Gwaine was standing awkwardly to the side, with Leon, Elyan and Percival. Arthur realized he must look like anything but a prince right now.

Somehow, he didn't care much.

Still, he had to do...something.

"Sire," Leon spoke, "I suggest we reconvene to a more secure location."

Casting Leon a grateful glance, Arthur rose. "Yes. Yes, we will meet in my chambers in ten minutes. Do not all come at once. Do not speak of this to anyone and avoid...confrontation."

There were mutterings of agreement, and Arthur kept tight control over himself until he reached his room.

Then he sank to the floor, his back leaning against the bed, and stared at the fireplace as if it would assure him that this entire thing was a dream.

Why couldn't it be a dream?

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Guinevere was the first to arrive. She glanced at him warily, but the short respite had allowed Arthur to come to his senses. Mostly.

Leon was next, then came Percival and Elyan.

Gwaine was nowhere to be seen.

"Where is he?" Arthur stopped himself from pacing. It would just give the idea he wasn't dealing with this unexpected turn of events well. He was. Really.

"Perhaps we should start without him." Elyan remarked mildly. He wasn't as close to Arthur as some (Merlin and his sister came to mind), but even he could see the prince's obvious tension.

"Yes." Arthur decided. It really was like Gwaine to be disruptive. He ignored the voice in the back of his head (that sounded suspiciously like Merlin) that told him Gwaine was generally reliable when it came to things of importance.

"Right." He turned to look at the small group. They seemed to be waiting for him to speak, all with varying levels of the same wariness Guinevere had shown.

For the first few minutes, Arthur had been in shock. He had tried to rationalize the two's behavior, even considering sorcery. Then his head had taken over. His heart had been pushed aside to bleed in quiet. Arthur had drawn up a mental list of facts.

One: Agravaine is a traitor.

Two: He wishes to kill me.

Three: Merlin knows this.

Four: Merlin is protecting me somehow.

Five: Agravaine will kill Merlin to kill me.

Six: This will not happen.

It had been the fifth fact that had jolted Arthur into wakefulness. Merlin's comment about being hard to kill had most likely been a true statement - Arthur remembered many, many times when the stubborn idiot had just refused to give up - but nobody was invincible. Eventually he would slip up, and Agravaine would take advantage of that.

And he was doing it solely for Arthur.

Sometimes, Arthur had thought, staring at his hands, it terrified him to confront just how loyal Merlin was to him.

Now he mentally shook himself. There would be time for that later. Right now he had to look at this one small aspect at a time. Any more and he would lose himself.

While emotion was undoubtedly the greatest strength, it was also the greatest weakness.

Arthur found he had lost track of what he had said. He tried to regain his sense of purpose.

"Did any of you know?"

The question slipped out. He hadn't meant to say it. Though, truth be told, he didn't regret it. He was only just realizing it would be foolish to assume anything was concrete at this point. It was a good a point to start as any.

"No." Leon didn't seem fazed by the inquiry. His mental track appeared to run parallel to Arthur's. Elyan and Guinevere voiced negatives as well, while Percival shook his head.

Arthur let out a breath. He hadn't known how much their responses would reassure him. The knowledge that Merlin was hiding something of such monumental importance shook Arthur to his core.

It was a sobering find.

"You're certain." Arthur finally said. He gazed steadily at them in turn. They all met his eyes.

There was silent assent all around.

Arthur let out a deep breath.

Then Gwaine burst into the room.

"Hello." He gave a lazy smile. Arthur wasn't sure at what. It seemed to be his default expression.

"Gwaine," Arthur growled. "where have you been?"

"Ah." Gwaine raised a finger. "I realized something."

"And what would that be?"

"Well," Gwaine grinned, the smile blossoming over his face, and Arthur felt his stomach drop in sudden foreboding. "I figured that we can't really have a discussion about Merlin without Merlin present, can we?"

With that, he pulled Merlin into the room.


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, everyone, thats right! Due to the (absolutely staggering, to be honest) reviews I've been receiving, I've been persuaded to continue this fic. I have no definite plans, but I'm thinking of three main guidelines. 1. No magic reveal. Sorry, but I'm not quite sure I could pull it off satisfactorily and I want to have a certain amount (cod for 'a hell of a lot') of tension and angst in Merlins mind, and I think still having to lie about his magic will do that. 2. A scarfic. I really like those, because they say that yes, Merlin takes an ungodly amount of pain for Arthur. I think he should know it. I don't think it will be the main focus of the story, but it will feature prominently (and, as said above, no magic reveal. I'll have fun making Merlin think up excuses for all those scars). and 3. I want to have Agravaine carry out his threat. What good is making a threat if you can't carry it out? So we will have some action, have no fear.**

**I have no idea how many chapters I will be making, BTW. **

**Merlin is mine. MIIIINEEE! Yeah, no.**

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Merlin felt vaguely annoyed.

After the tense..._conversation_ with Agravaine, he had wanted to have some peace. True, he was accustomed to threats/guarantees of violence (Morgana and her fondness for alcoves sprang to mind), but that simply meant he could put up a good front.

Not that he had been bluffing. A credible threat had to be very real, he believed.

Unfortunately, Agravaine was also a credible threat. And there were ways to kill people that were thoroughly believable as accidents.

Ah, he had forgotten how it had felt to be under metaphorical swordpoint at all times.

So when Gwaine had inexplicably ambushed him and dragged him to Arthur's chambers, only assuring Merlin that he 'really should be part of this', he was preparing himself to do some chore he had forgotten, and prepared to be even more annoying than usual.

However, Gwaine's comment to Arthur before pulling Merlin into the room had confused him.

Even more confusing were the people in the room. Arthur, Gwen, Elyan, Leon, and Percival.

A feeling of foreboding rose up in the pit of Merlin's stomach.

Something was different.

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"Um." Merlin looked cautiously at the faces staring at him in undisguised shock. "What's going on?"

Guinevere felt she should do something. Anything, really. Arthur was frozen, staring, his face still as granite.

Merlin's voice, Gwen registered, was wary. It was not of someone who was oblivious to the atmosphere of the room. Rather, it was of someone who had no idea of the current situation and was proceeding with caution.

She cut her eyes to Gwaine and, before she could think, blurt out, "You didn't tell him?"

"Tell me what?"

"Well, no." Gwaine sounded slightly defensive. "It's not the sort of thing I'm good at. You're all so _eloquent,_ I thought you'd say it better."

Gwen looked at him in patent disbelief.

"Ah, fine. I'll just get it over with, then." Gwaine turned to Merlin, his face uncommonly serious. "Thing is, mate, we heard you in the armoury. With Agravaine. The whole thing."

Merlin froze.

_What did I say?_

His brain went into overdrive.

**_Agravaine There's nobody here I think we can do without the pretend for once You mean you'll kill me You'll have to try and kill me then A lot of people have tried to kill me None of them really succeeded Two that he knows of Dozens at least I've lost count More than a little You'd still have to actually kill Arthur He's the best warrior in Camelot Four Agravaine Know this I don't care if you're crowned King or if I die doing it if you harm anyone I care for I will kill you._**

Merlin let out a breath.

"Ah."

He paused.

"It_ was_ rather...incriminating, wasn't it?"

"Somewhat." Gwaine answered, studying his face closely.

Merlin avoided looking at the person whose reaction would matter most to him. He simply couldn't.

The silence stretched out.

Another thought crept into his head, one he couldn't answer.

_What happens now?_

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"How long?"

Merlin's head jerk up to meet Arthur's eye. "What?"

Arthur hadn't meant for that to slip out. He had been staring at Merlin, who wouldn't look at him. He had an overwhelming urge to meet Merlin's eye, to _see_ for himself and _know_ that what had happened in the armoury was real.

"How. Long." Arthur repeated, letting a trace of emotion leak into his voice. "Have. You. Known."

Merlin paled. His eyes flickered away.

_"LOOK AT ME!"_

Merlin stumbled back, eyes wide.

Arthur held his gaze, tears threatening to spill over. He wanted to _know_, be told the truth, what was going on, _why everyone lied to him._

Struggling, he repeated, "How long?"

"A few weeks."

Merlin's voice was quiet. Not the quiet of admitting to saving Arthur's life from poison, but the quiet of fear, of hope of forgiveness slipping away.

Arthur closed his eyes.

_**You mean you'll kill me.**_

_**Yes.**_

Truth be told, Arthur knew it was not Merlin he was angry at.

"Why?"

Merlin looked confused.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Arthur tried to make it sound as if he was angry that a servant had neglected to inform him of a possible threat to the crown. Instead, he knew the real meaning of his words rang out loud and clear.

_Why didn't my best friend tell me someone I care about is planning to betray me?_

Merlin's face...crumpled. Arthur couldn't think of a more accurate description. He was mentally transported back to the closet, watching Merlin silently grieve for a lost brother.

"Would you believe me?"

Arthur opened his mouth to reply, then halted.

_No._

He would not have.

He would have laughed, passed it off as a joke, then grown angry as Merlin insisted, been insulted and hurt that his oldest friend would imply such a thing, and ultimately forbid Merlin from saying it ever again, building a frosty wall between them.

Arthur could see it as clearly as if it had actually happened.

Merlin gave him a small, sad smile and answered for him. "No. You wouldn't."

****And Arthur found he had run out of things to say.


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey peoples! This one is a short one, since the thought occurred to me to peer in to what Agravaine was doing. Also, here's my chance to clarify some things.**

**This is a very specific timeframe, between 4x02 and 4x03. Also, I know I'm going very slightly off-canon by the fact that Merlin knows of Agravaine's treachery this early, but for the purposes of this story he does. Honestly, it's rather obvious.**

**And, I have no regular schedule for updates. I may update with 2 chapters in one day or have days pass between updates. This is my first multi-fic and I'm trying to get used to it.**

**BTW, if you were curious a to the reason to why I decided to continue this fic, I wanted to credit the very awesome review of carinims01. Thank you so much, and ironically you were nearly the only one who DIDN'T ask/threaten/cajole for me to continue.**

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Morgana cooly surveyed Agravaine. "Excuse me?"

"My lady, he refuses to back down."

There was a short silence, in which Agravaine could nearly feel her suppressing her rage.

"And you expected him to?"

Morgana's voice was a whipcrack in the dark hovel.

"I-" Agravaine stopped himself as he saw her eyes flare dangerously.

_"Silence."_

The hovel was tense. Agravaine felt, if he tried hard enough, he could almost hear the magic thrumming with anger.

"I believe I instructed you," Morgana began, her voice rising "to remove any problems. _Merlin_" she spat "has proved time and time again to be a _problem._"

She moved closer to him "So tell me, Agravaine," she hissed, now barely above a whisper "why did you ask the problem to stop being one, when you should have stopped it?"

Agravaine did not move. He knew this type of mood, when she was most dangerous. Any motion, any at all, she would take as disobedience. He could barely control his breathing, which for some reason had grown rapid and shallow.

A light of satisfaction kindled in Morgana's eyes at the terror she had inspired in the man. Abruptly, she turned around and said in a voice of barely reined in sadistic pleasure, "Kill him, Agravaine. Make it as slow and painful as time allows, but kill him. Oh," she said, remembering, "I want you to bring me his eyes, if possible. The spell I'm working on requires human eyes."

Agravaine blinked, and barely refrained from reaching up to touch his own eyes at the statement.

He opened his mouth to reply, but thought better of it. So he nodded, and turned to exit.

When he reached the door, Morgana called him "Agravaine."

He paused, reminded of Merlin calling him to deliver the chilling threat in the armoury.

There was obvious pleasure in Morgana's voice. "To be clear, there is no reason for Merlin to be dead before you take the eyes."

Agravaine staggered out of the hovel as fast as his shaky legs would permit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey! I just rewatched 4x02 to refesh my memory, and it turns out Merlin and Gaius suspect Agravaine by the end of the episode. So I'm completely in canon! Also reminded me of some things of minor impact that I'd forgotten, so good thing I watched it, huh?**

**Also, I recieved a standing ovation for my portrayal of the batshi - um, guano insane Morgana. I figured that the death of Morgause by her own hand and the revelation that it was all for nothing AND the information that she will fall to this scary Emrys guy would drive her over the edge.**

**Oh, and the spell with the human eyes will be important later on. I know exactly why she needs it. It's a pretty useful spell, actually.**

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"Merlin."

Guinevere found she had lost track of why she had said his name. As his gaze moved from Arthur to her, she floundered.

"You said...some things. That you had done before."

Understanding dawned on Merlin's face, and there was something else. Fear?

"Yeah," broke in Gwaine "Something about saving Arthur and almost getting killed? A lot?"

Merlin looked uncomfortable.

"Was that true?" Arthur sounded faint, a ghost of who he had been twenty minutes before.

Slowly, Merlin nodded, gaze fixed on the floor. "There have been...some things and...happenings that I haven't told you about."

"Such as?" Surprisingly, Percival was the one to ask.

"Assassins. Threats. Problems. Traitors-" Merlin stumbled over the word and realized his mistake an instant too late.

"Traitors?" Arthur took a step forward, his voice rising, "You mean there are _more?_ And you kne-"

He broke off abruptly, face freezing.

"Her."

The word was flat. Merlin flinched.

They all knew who he was talking about.

"You knew."

Merlin's face was full of pain. It was more than enough assent.

Arthur leaned against the bedpost, wanting to feel something solid as he kept staring at Merlin.

Arthur's face said a single thing.

_Why?_

Merlin's face said another.

_Forgive me._

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Agravaine swept to his rooms.

He was apprehensive.

Ever since the warning of Emrys had been given to her, Morgana had rapidly descended into near madness. She was convinced that she could destroy this Emrys if she thwarted him. He would slip up and expose himself, and she would kill him and reign over Camelot uncontested.

Agravaine had relayed to her Gaius's reaction to the name - slight, but definitely a spark of recognition.

Really, her plan to kill Merlin had potential. If his ward died a gruesome death, it could possibly make Gaius lower his shield and he might let something slip. This was added to the fact that Arthur would take it badly if he died as well. The prince was the one running the entire kingdom by this point and everyone knew it. If he were to suffer a personal tragedy the kingdom would suffer as well. The people would welcome a change in rulers if their present one failed in his duty.

How did that old nursery rhyme go? _For want of a nail, a kingdom was lost._

Agravaine had figured out long ago Merlin was that nail.

The problem was, how could he do it?

More specifically, how could he take his eyes?

If the servant was 'taken ill' and died, it would be plausible. If he was 'accidentally' put in the way of an arrow in a bandit attack, it would be plausible. Even if he 'fell' off the towers it would be plausible. He had a reputation for clumsiness.

But how could his eyes being hacked out of his head be plausible as an accident?

Agravaine sighed.

Even more tricky, Morgana had made it clear she would greatly prefer the boy to suffer before dying. Blinding him would probably work, but it would be...noisy. Should he damage the boy's vocal chords beforehand?

That might work, he thought idly. Something to remember. Ah, yes, and he would need to clean up the mess. There would be a lot of blood at the scene.

Which brought him back to the original problem. How to disguise it as unintentional.

Perhaps...

Maybe he didn't need to disguise it.

It could simply be what it actually was: a brutal murder. Merlin was the unassuming lynchpin that, if removed, could fell the kingdom. That was, if he died. If he was _murdered..._

Agravaine felt a smile begin to appear on his face.

Arthur wouldn't fall, he would jump.

He would become irrational. Hurt. Crushed. Possibly even insane, if his friend's death was horrible enough. He would become obsessed with finding Merlin's killer, and the kingdom would topple.

Agravaine thought. Guilt. He could add guilt to the mix, manipulate Arthur into thinking it was his fault his friend died.

Torture would do it. The eyes would already appear to be part of that, and Agravaine supposed he could find someone who was well versed in these things to apply some very visible injuries. Torture was a well known method of extracting information, and it was common knowledge that Merlin knew quite a bit about Arthur. It wouldn't be hard to convince his nephew his friend had been tortured and killed to gain valuable information on him.

Agravaine began to think of things he could say to convince Arthur of this. Like always, he would leave some ideas hanging to be filled in, let his nephew take leaps where Agravaine wanted him to go.

_I cannot imagine what you must be going through, your majesty, especially since you - oh, I shouldn't, really, I'm terribly sorry._

_Well, the thought just occurred to me - it is simply...barbaric to consider..._

_The question is, sire...why would they do this? What did they want from him? One would assume he had something of value to them, the enemies of Camelot..._

That should do it, he reflected. More damage could always be done, but the revelation Agravaine was pushing for would most certainly drive Arthur to near-suicidal lengths of guilt.

This plan was turning out to have potential after all.


	6. Chapter 6

**Woot woot! I have another chapter! Sorry for keeping all of you waiting, so it's extra long this time. Really, I have an explanation. It's a doozy. I get very...antsy when I don't have a lot occupying my attention. Like, a mega amount of things to think about. So it's not 100% my fault that I'm currently immersed in 23 fandoms at the moment.**

**Yes, 23. And I counted, there are 284 significant characters altogether. I can even name all of them. The Merlin fandom is just one of them. Fear not, though, that doesn't mean I pay less attention to crafting this story. By the way, I can't tell all of you how much your reviews mean to me. Thank you so much.**

**Merlin is mine. MINE, I SAY! MWA-HAA-HAA-**

**(yeah, no)**

**-HA-HA!**

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Arthur could name exactly one other time when he felt this way. It wasn't hard to remember the shock, the horror, the utter _betrayal_ that had raged through his mind upon hearing Morgana claim the throne for herself.

He remembered the single thing keeping him sane had been Merlin. Merlin, who had gently pulled him away from the throne room and out of the castle to their hideout. Merlin, who had helped guide him until the world had regained order. Merlin, who had been as saddened as he by the betrayal of a friend.

Saddened, but not surprised.

Arthur sat on the edge of his bed, not taking his eyes from Merlin.

"And her?"

It surprised Arthur how level his voice was. Not a tremor or shake let slip the turmoil inside his mind.

Instead, his voice was bleak. Blank. Empty of anything, be it rage, hurt, betrayal, blame, as if he was too far gone to make the effort to care anymore.

Merlin knew what Arthur was asking. "I knew for months. Nearly right after she was rescued."

His voice was the same quiet tone. It matched Arthur's perfectly.

Merlin didn't know how everything had gone askew. He was supposed to be Arthur's guardian spirit, working from shadows so deep he had grown afraid of the light. Now, though, everything was being pulled out into open, where all his flaws and mistakes were so _painfully_ visible. Everything he had done wrong, chosen not to say, turned his back when he shouldn't have, because _he should have done better._

Terrified didn't even vaguely come close to what he was experiencing. Because if he had let slip that he'd known about Morgana, what else could come out into the light? What if he accidentally gave a hint to his magic, with Arthur and Guinevere and the knights all staring at him in horror?

What then?

So he was silent, hoping against hope that someone, _anyone_, would speak.

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"So."

Anyone except Gwaine.

"The way I see it," Gwaine said, very deliberately and clearly. He seemed to be choosing his words with upmost caution, which was in itself uncharacteristic for him. "Merlin's been protecting you, Princess. And it seems that there's been something of a war going on. So I think that we should get all the facts before passing judgement."

Merlin slid his gaze over to the knight, surprised. Gwaine was not only being uncommonly serious and cautious, but logical as well.

It hit Merlin that Gwaine had not brought him to the room just to make a ruckus. He had wanted Merlin to provide his side of the story, to tell them what was going on before they made a mess of trying to figure it out on their own. He may have prevented any number of misunderstandings from happening.

In his own way, Merlin reflected, Gwaine was something of a genius.

"I concur." Leon sounded relieved, alongside surprise at Gwaine's burst of wisdom.

"Me, too." Elyan voiced and Percival nodded.

Gwen looked anxiously over at Arthur, still sitting on the bed. Slowly, he nodded, and Gwen gave a tenative smile at Merlin.

Merlin took a deep breath. Well, this was better than he expected, considering the circumstances. Being heard out was an achievement in itself. The real test would be how they would react when they hear the whole story.

Maybe he was a pessimist, but he didn't see that turning out very well.

Very quickly, he decided not to tell them about the poison. He would not, could not look his friends in the face and tell them what he had done. It would stay in the shadows.

"After Morgana came back," he began slowly. "she was...different. It was hard to see, but I just put it down to her ordeal. But then the invasion came."

Merlin looked to Leon, Gwen and Arthur, the only ones who had been present. They nodded. The other knights had been in Camelot long enough to have heard the tale.

"An army of skeletons, right?" Elyan put in.

"Yes. An army of the undead." Leon said gravely.

"You seem to have those a lot." Gwaine mumbled.

Everyone glared at him.

Gwaine raised his hands in defeat, looking slightly alarmed.

"Morgana did that." Merlin stated. Really, he might as well say her crimes now. Maybe they could distract attention from him.

Of course, since she wasn't here, and he was the one telling them, that plan was liable to backfire. Their outrage would probably be directed at him.

Still, it wasn't like he had a choice.

Arthur's eyes refocoused on him, going wide.

"I followed her." Merlin stumbled out. "To the forest. She met with Morgause, and they talked about their plans."

Arthur was quiet.

Everything was whirling around in his head. He felt as soon as he tried to catch ahold of a thought, it was drowned out by cries of _betrayal, lies, stupid, how could you not __**see**__ this?_

There was a_ thing_ inside his chest, clawing and shredding his heart to bloody scraps as it tried to escape the pain he was drowning in.

With an effort, he drew his attention back to Merlin, who had paused nervously.

There was something in his eyes, something Arthur instinctively knew that only he could see.

Fear. Beyond simple nervousness, or shame. There was very real fear in Merlin's eyes, that was expertly hidden.

Nobody was just that good at hiding fear, or pain.

They had to have experience.

"How much?"

"What?"

"How much have you been hurt? For me?"

**_A lot of people have tried to kill me._**

Merlin was a friendly person. Everywhere he went, he was smiling and ready with a greeting. He was well liked, as far as Arthur could determine, and had many friends. Before today, Arthur would have said with confidence that Merlin had no enemies.

All that couldn't be a lie. Everything he had said in the armoury was said out of loyalty to Arthur and his close friends. Arthur was still certain that Merlin didn't have any personal enemies.

He simply took on Arthur's.

**_None of them really succeeded._**

It was that one word, _really._ Without it, the sentence would be_ None of them succeeded._ Which was, obviously, true. But there was that word. It changed the statement of fact into an implication that some of 'them' had come very, very close.

How close to death had Merlin been, without Arthur ever knowing? How much pain had he been through because he took on Arthur's enemies as his own?

"How much?"

Merlin echoed Arthur's question, staring at him.

_Slamming into hard stone, back screeching in agony as Arthur stood by blankly with red eyes_

_Smelling his own charred flesh as he was treated by Gaius, unable to fall into unconsciousness because his magic was slamming into him, making him feel every twitch and rumble of the ancient rites he'd used unknowingly_

_Chains digging into his wrists, agonizingly tight as the serkets came closer and he tried to fight them off but he was failing_

_Dropping the chalice as thunder ripped through him, tearing him into pieces so small he didn't know how he could even begin to understand enough to become whole again_

Suddenly, Merlin wanted nothing more than for Arthur to know. Know what had happened for years behind his back. Know who tried and failed to harm him. Know that Merlin would never let them succeed.

Know how much it cost him.

Merlin shrugged off his jacket. He tugged at his sleeve, and pulled the shirt over his head.

"This much."

Every morning, Merlin would take a moment to look at himself before putting on his shirt. Sometimes, he tried looking at his back, but it was hard to see all of it and his spine _twitched_ if he moved it wrong, so he didn't really bother.

Merlin knew what he looked like, though. He lived with it everyday. He was used to it.

So Merlin didn't fully realize the impact his scars would have on everyone else.

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They were _everywhere._

Gwen had only just processed that Merlin was taking off his shirt, of all things, when she registered the scars.

There were _so many_. Gwen knew Arthur had a few battle scars, as well as the nasty one from the Questing Beast, so she knew they were an inevitability when fighting. She had even guessed that Merlin had a few scars. He could hardly go out on seemingly suicidal missions on a regular basis and escape unscathed.

But if she had ever really thought about it, she had assumed they were minor things, more of scratches and maybe the occasional deeper but nonfatal cut.

Never in her darkest nightmares could she have come up with the sight she was seeing now.

In the exact center of Merlin's chest was a burn. Gwen vividly remembered the dragon's attack, and all the burn victims. This one was comparable to the most horrifying. Nearly seven inches in diameter, the flesh was melted and puckered. The burn actually looked like it made a slight depression inward against his ribs.

There were smaller scars as well, redder and shorter, mostly on his arms. They looked vaguely familiar to her, though she couldn't remember why.

Then it hit her. She flashed back to the terrible feast when Merlin had drunk the poison. When Gaius had been reassuring her that Arthur would get the herb needed in time to save Merlin, he had discovered the rash on his arm.

Gaius hadn't told her the rashes scarred.

On his throat, there was a straight, vertical line that abruptly jerked downward over his collarbone. With a shock, Gwen realized someone had tried to cut Merlin's throat. Faint lines encircled his wrists from manacles. How many times had he been put in manacles for scars to form?

Smaller, more innocuous scars were scattered among the harsher ones. Those, Gwen knew, were more like the ones Arthur had. They were from training, or accidents.

Right?

Gwaine made a choking sound. He was standing to Merlin's left, and was staring at his back.

Abruptly, he grabbed Merlin's shoulders and turned him around.

Gwen saw the serket sting.

Everyone in Camelot knew of the serkets. It was rare that a year went by that some poor citizen wasn't stung by the creatures. Nobody ever survived, and everyone in the castle agreed that killing whoever was stung was by far the kindest thing to do. Gaius kept special herbs that gave a swift death to their consumer solely for that purpose.

Yet there was a serket sting on Merlin's back.

Gwen tried to breathe, but she found there was a sudden lack of air in the room.

She darted her eyes to Arthur. He was rigid, unmoving, staring in undiluted shock at his best friend who had deceived and lied and suffered for him.

"Merlin."

It was not Arthur, but Gwaine to speak first, moving Merlin to face him. His voice was rough with a maelstrom of terror, confusion and anger.

"What _happened_, mate?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Greetings! Here is a chapter for all of you peoples! This doesn't advance the plot much, but I sort of like writing introspection over action. Fear not, though, I have a feeling there will be action within the next few chapters. Maybe.**

**Your reviews are what gives me fuel to write on. Thank you!**

**Of course Merlin is mine. What on earth makes you think otherwise?**

**(shifty eyes)**

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_Destiny happened._

The words sprang to the forefront of Merlin's mind as if they had been waiting patiently to be revealed. After all, they were technically true. It was because of his destiny that he had suffered as much as he did, gave as much as he did, accepted as much as he did.

Except, it wasn't.

It may be why he began to protect Arthur (and, by extension, Camelot), but he would have long ago backed out if that was the sole reason.

_Loyalty happened._

That was true as well, more true than destiny. Loyalty was a thing easily pledged and hard to win. It was what motivated hundreds, thousands of people to do things beyond them, out of loyalty to their ideals.

Loyalty, however, wasn't quite the right word for what Merlin did. Undoubtedly, it was there in spades, but he knew that was not the only reason.

_Friendship happened._

That was closer. Friendship, something he had never dreamed would happen between him and the infuriating prat in the marketplace. With it, or maybe because of it, Merlin could see the future king for all he could be, because he knew him.

Knew Arthur.

That was really the root of it all.

_Arthur happened._

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Arthur finally realized that the world, or maybe just his world, had gone insane.

**_This much._**

The words replayed over and over in his head, slamming into him.

_**Dozens, at least.**_

There were wounds on Merlin, so many he had to constantly look at Merlin's face to remind himself that this was actually Merlin.

_**I've lost count.**_

It was considered an honor beyond measure to retire from knighthood. It meant that the knight was one of the few that were brave or skilled or simply lucky enough to survive. Arthur had met a few of them when he was younger, grizzled veterans who nodded gravely as he demonstrated his uncanny ability with different types of weapons and muttered to his father that there was a good chance the little prince would be able to retire someday.

They had also shown him a few thick, jagged scars on their legs, arms, faces and warned him that wounds were an inevitability. Unlike others, who had laughed and either declared they wouldn't get wounds, or eagerly awaited what they saw as trophies of valor, Arthur had understood the former knight's meanings, even if he privately did think of the scars as proof of bravery.

Battle was built on warrior's blood. That was understood.

_**A lot of people have tried to kill me.**_

_Knight's_ blood.

**_None of them really succeeded._**

Knights were supposed to be the protectors, because they knew and accepted the risks. They were ready, even prepared to die because they knew they were protecting the people they cared for. They knew what to expect, and knew how to deal with it.

_**How much?**_

So what happened when the protector...

_**How much have you been hurt?**_

was never meant to protect at all?

_**For me?**_

What happened...

_**This much.**_

to make him do it anyway?


	8. Chapter 8

**I! AM! BACK! (Apparently it is common to reference pop culture when communicating. I am attempting this with a well-known method of subtly changing a popular quote to convey humor.)**

**So, I really do love all those beautiful reviews. Any critique you can dispense to help with the writing/plot is welcome. But I do have to ask freshly caught Cornish pixies to perhaps dial down the enthusiasm. You can come across as vaguely threatening. **

**Merlin is not not not not not mine! Try figuring that one out!**

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Gwaine tried very hard to resist the impulse to yell.

Contrary to popular belief, the errant knight was actually rather shrewd. Well, perhaps not when copious amounts of liquor were involved, but when sober (or even half-sober), Gwaine had surprised a few people with his practicality.

Right now, however, he was fighting to stay the only sane person in the room. It wasn't a role he was used to.

Especially when Merlin, of all people, chose to reveal that he was completely insane.

**_This much._**This much. _This much_ for a selfish, idiotic, bragging _nobleman_ who didn't even notice that he gave _this much._

_Neither did you,_ a small voice whispered in his ear, and Gwaine took on a scowl.

For the first time, Merlin appeared to be registering the impact of his scars on the room. An expression Gwaine realized was shock flitted across his face, and his shoulders stiffened under Gwaine's hands.

_He didn't mean to show us._

The thought was presented to Gwaine in a matter-of-fact way. He realized it was logical. Merlin obviously went to great lengths to hide the scars. Revealing them in the heat of the moment most likely hadn't been thought out.

For some reason, Gwaine felt vaguely sick. When or where had Merlin started to believe he should hide something like this?

_A serket sting._

That, of all things, was what assaulted Gwaine the most. The burn mark - Gwaine had heard of the dragon's rampage. The line on his throat - he couldn't look at that for too long or his blood began to boil dangerously, but it was straightforward enough. The smaller, reddish scars - he didn't know what to make of them.

He had seen victims of serket stings before, and simply couldn't reconcile the image of Merlin in that much pain.

And Merlin still hadn't answered his question.

_"What happened?"_

"I..."

Very rarely was Merlin at a loss for words. Just another indication of how twisted this day had become.

Merlin felt as if he were standing under a waterfall, with panic crashing down and threatening to break him under tons of pressure.

_Why did I do that?_

A major strength that Merlin had when dealing with the threats to Arthur and/or elsewhere was his anonymity. He could move freely, act without fearing that one of his friends would follow him and get killed (_Lancelot,_ his mind whispered, even as he tried for his own mental health to tell himself there was nothing he could have done). Even though he knew if he failed that his friends would pay the price, while he was fighting alone he could tell himself that it was only his life on the line.

Gwaine was still holding his shoulders, a desperate, almost feral look in his eyes, waiting for an answer.

Something almost like calm swept through Merlin.

There was nothing he could do.

Nothing at all.

One of the many, many secrets he had been keeping was out into the light, and there was no shadow where it could hide again.

It gave one a peculiar kind of peace to know whatever they can do will not alter the path they see before them.

"I just told you."

The strange calmness showed in Merlin's voice. Gwaine's face flickered, and he slowly took his hands from Merlin's shoulders.

"Me?"

Arthur sounded small, like a young child being shown something that both frightened and confused him.

"Because of...me?"

"Not because of you. For you. Most of it."

It was an important distinction, Merlin felt. It was hardly Arthur's fault he was a target. He didn't invite traitors and assassins and 'problems' to take turns trying to stick a dagger in him. He didn't ask Merlin to stop them. If Merlin was hurt, it was _for_ Arthur, not _because_ of Arthur.

However, Arthur paled at Merlin's words. He swayed almost imperceptibly.

Gwen reached out to steady him. Elyan stepped forward to help, though it seemed like they were doing it mostly on reflex, eyes still full of shock.

"And the..." Leon gestured toward his back.

Unconsciously, Merlin's right hand curled around his side, brushing the large, jagged oval.

"When I followed Morgana...she found me."

Gwen made a small, choked sound. Arthur simply stared at Merlin with dead eyes.

"Morgana did that?" Arthur sounded distant, as if trying to remove himself from the physical world so he could have time to figure out everything that had happened.

"And Morgause. I got away after they left me for the serkets and...I don't remember much after that."

Yet again another lie effortlessly slipped out. Merlin certainly did remember the searing agony that felt as if his very blood had been set afire, or turned into it. He wasn't about to tell them that, though.

"How did you not die, Merlin?" Gwen sounded hesitant, with a touch of confusion.

_A dragon healed me because I am a Dragonlord._ "I don't know. It's like the Dorocha. Somehow I'm the exception to every rule." He gave her a wan smile, trying to ignore the sharp prick of telling blatant falsehoods to her face.

Percival looked thoughtful. "That does seem to be true. Gaius said no man has ever survived an attack from the Dorocha."

Merlin shrugged. "See?"

"Gaius." Something in Arthur's gaze sharpened. "You would have needed...help. After the sting, even if it didn't kill you. And also patching up all those other wounds. Gaius knows, doesn't he?"

Merlin hesitated, then nodded. It wasn't as if he could claim he patched himself up. Half his injuries had left him deeply unconscious or in too much pain to think straight.

Arthur briefly closed his eyes, opened them, and sighed deeply.

A few tense seconds passed, and he said quietly, "I must remember to thank him, then. And..."

There was a pause, shorter this time.

"Thank you, Merlin. For everything I don't know.


	9. Chapter 9

**Here's what Agravaine is doing, we haven't seen him for a while.**

**I have a question for all of you: do you want the chapters I've been writing (relatively short) at the pace I've been writing, or longer chapters but at a much slower pace? Feedback, please.**

**I don't not own Merlin in an alternate universe.**

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"You can do it?"

The small man stared leveley at Agravaine from where he was sitting. "Aye."

The man unnerved Agravaine. As he had explained the specifics of what he would be hired to do, not even the barest trace of emotion had crossed the blank face. He hadn't looked gleeful, or interested, or bored, or scornful, or even acknowledging of another human presence. Had he not been looking right at him the whole time, it would have been as if Agravaine simply didn't exist.

Hearing him speak was, somehow, even more unnerving.

"I n-need the eyes undamaged."

The man raised his eyebrow half a centimeter, somehow managing to say _I heard you the first time. Stop talking before you make a fool of yourself._ without any other movement.

Agravaine took the hint.

The small man stood. He was shorter than Agravaine by a head, yet Agravaine couldn't help but feel that the small man was infinitely more dangerous.

Padding over to the kitchen area of the one-room cabin, the small man filled a kettle with water from a barrel. Agravaine watched, puzzled but reserved to not asking questions.

The kettle went over the fire. The small man turned to see Agravaine watching. Finally, a faint expression of annoyance settled on his face.

"You'll find the body by the west border tomorrow morning."

With a start, Agravaine realized he was dismissed. "So soon?" he blurted before he could stop himself.

The annoyance didn't change. The small man may have been a statue. His face, however, clearly said_ I've told you tomorrow morning. There is no reason to doubt me. Get. Out._

Agravaine dropped the bag of coins on the table and exited the cabin. Carefully, he walked across the clearing in the direction back to Camelot. A part of his brain screamed run, RUN! as he felt the eyes of the small man burning brands into his back. But he forced himself to walk slowly.

Agravaine thought, almost hysterically, that he could not have found a better man for the job.

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The small man watched as the tall man left. Names didn't matter to him. He had forgotten his own name long ago. Even the names of his targets he remembered only long enough as was necessary.

Merlin. A servant in the castle, the servant of the prince. It would be tricky to take him, them. Tricky, but certainly not impossible.

The tall man had said the servant had logic-defying amounts of luck, citing a few of the many times he had cheated death, both for himself and his master. Plans foiled when thought impregnable, lives saved when hope was lost.

The small man had raised his eyebrow internally. Really? This was interesting. The tall man didn't seem to understand the significance of what he was saying.

Were all people so stupid?

The small man was better than average at connecting the dots.

He'd have to be careful.

It had been a while since he'd hunted a sorcerer.


	10. Chapter 10

**I...um.**

**I kind of...maybe...umm.**

**You will probably need a bucket for this chapter. Or...several. I found I'm kind of...majorly twisted.**

**I think I'll go change the rating of this.**

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Arthur was drained.

That was really the only description that did justice. The emotions that had battered into him, the thing that had torn at his heart were all gone.

Until it reappeared at the expression of surprise on Merlin's face. It was fleeting, lasting less than a second, then it was gone. But it was still there, had still happened. Merlin was genuinely surprised at being thanked.

_Thanked by you, _a small part of him noted,_ he's surprised he's being thanked by you._

A smile tugged at Merlin's mouth. He looked more like...Merlin when he smiled. Today was one of the longest instances where he hadn't been.

_Of course,_ the little voice piped up again, _he probably wasn't happy when he was receiving those injuries. How many times was his smile fake because he was healing and in pain when doing his chores?_

_Chores..._

Arthur blinked, another part of Merlin's secrecy becoming clear. "You never do go to the tavern, do you?"

"Ah." Merlin had the grace to look embarrassed. "No. Never, actually."

Gwaine frowned. "What? The_ tavern_ is your cover?" He stared at Merlin in genuine astonishment, then at Arthur. "And you didn't think that someone mentioning to me you supposedly spend all your time there would bring up odd questions? Because you don't, mate, and I would have said so."

"Gaius thought it up long before you came along." Merlin said.

"Still," Gwaine mumbled. Percival hid a smile.

Merlin hesitated. "What happens now?"

Arthur heard the forced casualness and understood what Merlin was saying with no words. _What will you do now, Arthur? What will you do with Agravaine?_

Agravaine.

The thought sobered Arthur immediately. He had, for a few minutes, managed to forget the revelation of his uncle's betrayal. Now, though, it returned in full force.

What _should_ he do?

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The small man moved soundlessly through the trees. Living in the remote wilderness had taught him how to remain undetected. It was a useful skill for an assassin.

He was headed for one of his snares. If the servant truly was a sorcerer, it would be foolish to approach him weakened in any way, and skipping lunch would not be smart.

Utilising every ounce of stealth he possessed, the small man approached the snare. A good assassin was not noticed. An excellent assassin did not exist.

A faint sound caught his ear. There was something...

Ah. There was something in the snare.

Abruptly, the small man grinned. The smile stretched across his face, warping the otherwise unremarkable features. It illuminated a spark in his eyes.

A spark of insanity.

Usually, it was hidden. The small man kept it under strict control, and used it to his advantage in a cold and calculated plan.

Sometimes, however, he allowed himself to have..._fun._

There was a deer in the snare. A buck, perhaps four years old. It had thrashed against the loop of twine around his neck, carving a bloody line in his throat. One of its legs was broken, grounding it.

The small man's grin widened. How fitting. Sorcerers always had an easier time clearing the way to run. But nobody could run with a broken leg. It was common logic, and the small man had figured long ago that removing anyone's actual ability to run improved his chances of keeping them under his control.

He do so loved when they couldn't run.

He pulled out a knife. It was a standard woodsman's knife, though it had been put to uses no woodsman would commit. The small man dropped to his knees beside the panting buck. It rolled its eyes in fear.

"You understand," the small man murmured, staring in rapture at the buck, "I have to practice." The knife twitched in eager anticipation.

The small man rested the tip of the knife under the buck's right eye.

The deer grew more agitated, and started to thrash.

"No, no," the man pinned it down. "None of that."

With no warning, he thrust the knife under the eye.

The deer screamed, it's pain overriding fear, and started to thrash harder.

The broken leg lay at an odd angle. The small man's face twisted with rage, and he stomped down on the other one, feeling the bones snap under his shoe. In quick succession, he also broke the remaining two legs.

The deer shuddered, and kept screaming pitifully, unable to move except to tremble and attempt to rock it's torso feebly.

The small man, who had not let go of the knife, started sawing around the frantic, jerky eyeball. Blood poured from the wound, staining the grass and running into the deer's nostrils. It started choking.

With a sickening squelch, the small man flicked the knife, and the eyeball flopped out. The socket was gushing blood, as if trying to replace the eye.

The man picked up the eyeball with his free hand and examined it. It wasn't completely spherical, and there were strings of bloody flesh attached to the back of it.

He shrugged. It would have to do. It wasn't like he was an expert in this field.

Although, he thought, as a grin spread across his face, maybe he should be. The act had sent his blood singing, sheer _power_ thrumming through him at the knowledge that there was nothing the animal could do to stop him.

He hoped the boy wouldn't pass out. That wouldn't be any fun.

He looked down at the twitching deer, still whimpering.

Now for the best part.

The small man positioned the knife at the deer's throat, right over where he knew the jugular was. Lifeblood.

He thrust the knife in to the hilt, and pulled it out swiftly.

The copper scent intensified until it seemed as if the very air was bleeding. The deer began to choke harder as it's air was blocked.

The man swiftly dropped the knife and cupped his hands under the stab wound. Blood, thick and dark, rushed over the torn flesh into his hands. It pooled and spilled over the sides, falling onto the ground and watering the earth.

He lifted his hands to his mouth and poured the blood in. The warm liquid splashed down his throat, over his face, as he swallowed greedily. Finishing, he pressed his cupped hands again under the still-gushing throat of the deer.

Three more handfuls went the way of the first. The deer bled out by the second.

The small man sucked on his fingers, like a child who wants to taste the last remnants of his treat. His eyes were closed, and his whole body shuddered in ecstasy.

He stayed that way for several minutes, the carcass of the deer laying beside his kneeling form. Even from far away, it would be impossible to believe it was merely sleeping.

Only when the blood started to become sticky did the small man open his eyes. He looked at the deer, eyes unfocused, and shook his head as if to clear it.

He looked at his hands, at the drying blood on them, and a lazy smile crossed his blood-painted face.

He staggered up, grasping his knife as he did so. The eye he pocketed, strings of sinew hanging out over the top.

The insanity he locked up again, until it was the right time to unleash again.

The small man started to turn, then stopped to look back at the deer carcass.

"The boy better have more." he murmured.

Then he stepped away, nonexistent once again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey, everyone. Nope, not dead. I took a short break from writing this, and wrote an unrelated oneshot where Freya helps Arthur. It's rather good, if I says so myself. Check it out! (end shameless self-promotion)**

**So, it appears last chapter was a Base Breaker for this story (Base Breaker: where a major part of the story is loved by one part of the fandom and loathed by another). That's okay, I was pretty sure it would be one. I get it can be a bit off-putting.**

**By the way, agape is pronounced ah-gah-pay. Even better, it's a real term, and one of the reasons I love Merlin so much (you'll get why after reading).**

**Hey, BBC snuck into my dreams and plucked out this amazing premise where Merlin and Arthur are close in age and magic is illegal! Oh, you don't believe me? **

**Worth a try.**

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Percival was used to being a spectator. For some reason, everyone assumed since he was big that he must be inconsequential in matters unrelated to physical exertion. That suited him fine. Being underestimated had worked well in the past.

Now, however, he was just glad to stay out of the fray and be given a chance to get his head straight.

In the year since coming to Camelot and spontaneously being knighted, Percival had interacted with Merlin quite a bit. He'd taken a liking to the young man, especially since he reminded Percival of his lost family. Now he was building a new one, and he'd always wanted a little brother.

It was clear Merlin was the 'little brother' to all of them, and even if Arthur didn't admit it he was the most protective out of all of them, perhaps tying with Gwaine.

So Percival knew the revelation that Merlin intentionally put himself in danger specifically to protect Arthur would shatter the prince. Especially when Merlin actually proved the lengths he had gone to went far beyond what was expected of even the most loyal servant.

Percival recalled something he had heard when he was a boy from a philosopher._ Eros, Philia, Storge, Agape._

_**You see, young man - your name was Perry, right? - I looked at people, and I realized something. Our relationships, the bonds we form with others, can be named. I focused on the positive emotions, and found four main types. The Four Loves, I call them. Eros, that is the love people usually think of when they reference love. Romantic love, between a man and woman. Now, that's one, but the others are not romantic. Philia, that one is friendship. Thats the second. Storge, that is family. Love for parents, children, brothers, sisters...or anyone as good as.**_

_**Agape, now, that one is different. It can be present in any of the other three, as well as standing alone. It means 'sacrifice'. It is unconditional, selfless, and completely limitless. I personally consider it the truest form of love, since to put someone above your own life...that is true sacrifice.**_

_**You know, young man, what I wouldn't give to see agape. It is rarer than kings.**_

Privately, Percival knew, just from looking at Merlin's wounds, that he had finally seen agape.

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Merlin felt the tension lessen to a bearable intensity with Gwaine's comment about the tavern. When he asked about what they would do - code for Agravaine - it thankfully did not spring back to its former choking thickness.

Merlin bent down to pick up his shirt, and pulled it over his head. Even with it on, the vertical line on his throat was visible.

"Where did that one come from?" Leon asked quietly, sounding cautious.

Merlin reached a hand up to touch the scar. He shrugged. "Run-of-the-mill assassin. Hardly worth note, except he caught me unaware."

What Merlin neglected to mention was the way his magic had reacted violently the instant the pain registered, blowing the assassin back with boneshattering force into the wall. He had died instantly. His hand, obviously holding the knife that was cutting Merlin's throat, had been thrust back with the rest of him, jerking the knife away from it's formerly perfectly straight path.

Merlin picked up his neckerchief and tied it, adjusting it carefully so that the scar was completely hidden.

"There are run-of-the-mill assassins?" Elyan sounded slightly incredulous.

Merlin paused awkwardly. "Well. Yes."

Gwaine gave him an odd look. "That really shouldn't be funny, mate."

"It was winter, so I suppose I wasn't as observant."

"Winter."

"Problems seem to like the warmer months."

That was certainly true. Merlin dreaded the coming of spring. His happiest memory in Camelot was of the winter where there had only been two attempts on Arthur's life, and only one of them magical in nature.

"I see."

Merlin could tell Gwaine didn't see in the slightest, but he let it slide. Admittedly, it _was_ rather bizarre.

Unexpectedly, there was a knock on the door.

"Sire?"

Arthur blinked and called, "Yes?"

The door opened a crack and a servant poked his head in, eyes lowered. "There is a gift from one of the lower-level nobles. He says it would be an honor if the prince himself ate some of his spoils from a hunt. Shall I-"

"You may prepare it, and tell the nobleman I will thank him later." Arthur waved the servant away. It was galling to still have to attend to such duties when things of so much more importance had been set in motion.

"I'll go with you." Merlin said.

"What?" Merlin couldn't leave now, not when they were going to discuss how to deal with the traitor.

Merlin gave a gentle, somewhat tired smile. "Four, Arthur."

Oh.

Right.

Feeling faintly inadequate, Arthur nodded.

Merlin followed the servant out the door. He walked toward the kitchens, and hoped Arthur would have the strength to be able to deal with Agravaine's betrayal. Not just in the technical sense, but mentally and emotionally as well.

Making small talk, he asked, "What did the nobleman catch?"

The servant rolled his eyes.

"Actually, he didn't. It was given to him by a woodsman. A fine, healthy deer, if a bit roughed up."


	12. Chapter 12

The kitchen was bustling and noisy, as usual. The servant went off to supervise something, and Merlin weaved through the crowd, looking around curiously for the deer.

Merlin always checked Arthur's food with magic. He had found several useful spells that, when done properly, would reveal if a dish was deadly. Unfortunately, he was only slightly better at it than healing spells. So, more often than not, he would have to bring the food back to Gaius's chambers to take small bits of the chicken or vegetables or sausages and pour various potions on it to see if it reacted the way it should. It was boring, tedious, and slightly dangerous to be handling the potions. Usually, there was absolutely nothing to find.

Usually. He _had_ found poison, four times, which was why he kept doing it.

As often as was possible, Merlin observed the food being made. He had discovered, to his surprise, that the poison-detecting spells worked better if he had seen the food cooked and prepared. Gaius had theorized that close contact to something made a faint connection, allowing magic to flow more smoothly.

However it worked, Merlin was just happy that this particular self-imposed task was the easiest out of all his ways to protect Arthur. If it happened to be a bit boring, Merlin reminded himself of the Questing Beast, or the serkets, or the dragon attack.

Finally, he made his way over to where a large deer was being skinned, next to the door where servants threw out water and scraps. Looking closer, he realized with a start that it's right eye was missing.

"Poor thing gouged it out on a stick when it was thrashing in the trap."

Merlin turned to see a man dressed in typical woodsman fashion; dark trousers, light grey shirt with a dark green jacket. He was rather scruffy, and was shorter than Merlin by a head. His face was scruffy with a sparse beard and brown hair. His voice shimmered with quiet sadness.

"I hate when they injure themselves." Merlin offered, glad to be distracted from the butchering of the deer.

"Indeed. I ended it's pain as quickly as possible." The woodsman stared directly at Merlin, the sadness still audible in his voice. "It's a snare for rabbits and such, you know. I never thought it was large enough to take a deer. I didn't know what to do with it, until that nobleman came along."

The woodsman hesitated, never taking his gaze from Merlin. "Is it true the...the prince himself will eat it?"

Merlin nodded, trying to keep a straight face. No wonder Arthur was so puffed up, if this was the admiration he got from even a simple woodsman.

The man cocked his head. "Are you the taster? I've heard of tasters."

Merlin smiled. "Something like that. I'm Merlin, Arthur's personal servant. I bring him his meals."

The woodsman nodded, looking thoughtful.

Glancing back at the deer, Merlin noticed something else. "Why are all it's legs broken?"

"I told you," the man said, never moving his gaze from Merlin's eyes, "The snare was for small animals. I didn't have a way to move it, so I fashioned a sort of sled out of a few branches. The legs were all over the place, dragging the sled down and making the deer fall off. I had to make it more compact."

Merlin grimaced but nodded. It was a reasonable explanation. He well remembered how unweildy a deer carcass could be, and that was when they had sleds designed for that sort of thing.

"What is your name?" Merlin asked, holding out a hand.

"I have no name," the woodsman said as he grasped Merlin's hand with both of his.

_Click._

Something, - _something_ - snapped into place around his wrist, and Merlin staggered.

His magic, always comforting and always _there_, suddenly simply _vanished._

"Are you alright?" the woodsman asked, in exactly the same tone in which had stated he had no name.

Merlin bent over, trying to find his balance again as his thoughts scattered and cried _where is it? where is it?_

"Perhaps you need some air," the man said with no trace of alarm in his voice. He led Merlin toward the door nearby.

Something inside him warned Merlin. He jerked back, but the woodsman easily kept hold of him, pulling him outside and letting the door swing shut behind them. They were in the small side courtyard, empty of witnesses.

Merlin felt as if one of his legs had been taken away unexpectedly and was trying to stay vertical during an earthquake. It was taking all his attention to keep from falling over.

There was something to be concerned about, some dange-

Then he felt a blow to the back of his head, and he lost the battle with gravity.

Falling into a deep, deep well of blackness darker than the night sky, he heard someone mutter, _"Seven handfuls."_


	13. Chapter 13

"Okay." Arthur looked around the table. "We have a plan, so stick to it."

He glanced pointedly at Gwaine, who smiled enigmatically and shrugged. "No promises, princess."

Arthur sighed and dismissed them, warning them again to not raise the suspicions of Agravaine.

Gwaine reserved himself to dodging the man for the rest of the plan, for he had his reservations about his self-control. With any other traitor, it would be fine, but this bastard had threatened Merlin.

Generally, Gwaine didn't take that well.

Their plan, sadly, did not include a part where Gwaine got to beat the tar out of Agravaine, even though he had argued strenuously for it. With support from Percival and Elyan.

Gwaine had to admit the more levelheaded plan would most likely work better even if it didn't give the same satisfaction. Not that he would admit that, of course.

"Gwaine," Arthur called after him, "Will you tell Merlin what we came up with?"

"Sure."

Gwaine strolled down the corridor, and realized idly that Merlin must have been gone for at least an hour, perhaps two.

_Quite a long time to just be staring at a cooking stag,_ he thought. Of course it would be a stag - these nobles hardly hunted anything else, other than the occasional boar. Gwaine was thoroughly sick of venison, even if it was much better fare than he was used to.

Actually, he realized, Merlin might consider staring at a cooking stag a good thing. From what he'd told them, it was probably his only 'extracurricular' duty that didn't involve mortal peril.

The thought elicted a sigh from Gwaine. He still found it hard to process that his best and first friend had hidden something like this. No, not friend - his brother, and every time his mind flashed back to the scars his fingers itched to pull his sword and cut the perpetrators to bloody ribbons.

Gwaine blinked as it occurred to him that Merlin had never explained more than two of the dozens of scars on him. The short, rashlike scars, the burn, and the small armada scattered all over suggested many, many more stories to be told. Merlin, Gwaine reflected with a wry smile, was surprisingly adept at saying everything except what you asked for.

Spotting the servant that had come to the room, he asked him where Merlin was.

"He's still in the kitchens, as far as I know."

Gwaine waved the servat away distractedly. At least Merlin was in a crowded space, and not off in some secluded corner alone. Granted, he probably had enough sense not to do that, but Merlin had proved today that he had even less sense than originally credited him, which hadn't been much to begin with.

Entering the kitchens, a nostalgic grin lit up Gwaine's face. So many stolen chickens...

He searched around and came to where the stag - _of course_ - was being roasted on a spit over an open flame. Looking around, he frowned. Merlin was nowhere in sight.

Turning in a slow circle, Gwaine scanned the large room. He couldn't see everywhere, but it was increasingly clear that Merlin was nowhere in the kitchen.

"Sir?"

Gwaine looked down to see a tiny, obviously poverty-stricken kitchen boy who couldn't be more than five, with a baggy round cloth cap on his head.

"Whatcha doin?"

"Looking for someone." Gwaine replied.

The boy scrunched up his face as if processing the knight's words. Then he said, very proudly, "My name's Bedivere."

"Mmm." Gwaine said absently, sweeping his gaze through the crowd again as a seed of worry began to sprout inside his mind.

"Who're you looking for? The woodsman?"

"He's not a woodsman." Feeling definitely sure something was wrong, he turned to the cook overseeing the deer. "Where is Merlin?"

The cook glanced at him. "'Fraid I don't know, Sir. He was here 'round an hour and a half ago. Haven't seen him since."

"I don't like the woodsman." Bedivere announced.

The seed of worry blossomed into a cold feeling of foreboding. "He's...been missing for an hour and a half?"

The cook paused, and said cautiously, "Closer to two hours, I would say, Sir Gwaine."

"I heard him when he came in to the kitchens, he looked at me and said _two handfuls._ He said it quiet, so he didn't know I heard him. Are you looking for the sick man?"

Gwaine abruptly turned and strode out of the kitchens. Analytically he realized he was sprinting. His feet slammed down on the stone, sending jolts of force rattling around his skull.

He reached his destination in under a minute. He raced down the corridor, and threw open the door to Agravaine's chambers.

Agravaine jumped up at the sudden _crash_ of the door and looked, startled, toward the unexpected intruder. "Sir Gwaine, what-"

He got no further before Gwaine grabbed him by his cloak and slammed him against the wall.

"Where. Is. He."

Agravaine gasped, desperately trying to recover his breath. "I - what?"

Gwaine reared his head back and snapped forward, smashing his forehead into the bridge of Agravaine's nose.

Agravaine produced a sound that was a cross between a scream and a gurgle.

Pinning the man's neck under his forearm, Gwaine repeated in a voice eerily reminiscent of his friend's threat in the armoury, "Where. Is. Merlin."

Blood flowed out of an obviously broken nose as Agravaine wheezed and struggled against the knight's crushing pressure on his throat.

"Gwaine! _Gwaine!_"

Arms wrapped around Gwaine and pulled him back from Agravaine. Caught off guard, he fell back.

Percival and Elyan held him down as the traitor sunk to the floor, coughing.

Gwaine lashed out at Percival, landing a solid punch in the jaw and heard a crack that signaled a broken jaw. He twisted to squirm out of Percival's grip, but couldn't get away.

"What are you _doing?!_" Elyan shouted.

Gwaine snarled and redoubled his efforts to get free, to _force_ that snake to tell him where Merlin was, _beat_ it out of him and kill him with his bare hands for hurting his best friend.

There was more shouting, and reinforcements came, holding onto him until he could hardly breathe.

Gradually, Gwaine became calmer under the combined restraints.

Carefully, they let go of him, looking warily at his face for any indication of another berserk attack. Leon and Arthur were the reinforcements, with Guinevere standing a few feet away. A small part of Gwaine's mind noted she must have been with Percival and her brother, then gone to fetch the other two.

Moving his eyes to the crumpled form of Agravaine, Gwaine growled out, "Merlin's missing."


	14. Chapter 14

**I'm on a roll! This is, what, my fourth chapter in 24 hours? Woohoo!**

**I must admit, it was immensely satisfying to smash Agravaine's nose last chapter.**

**By the way, I would like to reaffirm THERE WILL BE NO MAGIC REVEAL. I said it right near the start, and I am still following those guidelines.**

**00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0000**

Bedivere looked after the Knight in confusion.

That was strange. The man was a Knight, that much he knew. But he didn't look much like a Knight. He didn't act like a Knight, or at least how Bedivere thought Knights acted. He didn't even talk like a Knight.

"Is he a real knight?" Bedivere asked the cook, just to make sure.

"Go stir the pots," was all he got in reply.

Sighing, Bedivere returned to his post. He peeked into the pot and saw it was just a broth, for now. Looking furtively around, he dipped the spoon in and brought it to his mouth, drinking deeply.

Smacking his lips, he stirred the broth, pleased with his secrecy.

Then he frowned.

He couldn't get that creepy woodsman out of his head. The way the man had muttered those words about him, _two handfuls_, they simply stuck in his brain.

Bedivere let go of the spoon and cupped his hands together. He looked at them and tried thinking hard to figure out what the woodsman had meant.

"What fits in a handful?" he asked another cook.

The cook glared at him pointedly. "Little boy's tongues who talk instead of stir soups."

Bedivere's eyes widened and he started stirring again. Then he turned back to the cook, careful to keep the spoon moving. "Why did the sick man go with the woodsman?"

The cook stopped in horror. "What?! Disease, in my kitchen? Where?"

"He left, with the woodsman. I don't think he should have done that."

But the cook had deflated after hearing there was no disease at the present. She was about to berate the boy for such a scare, but was called away to season the deer. Bedivere watched her leave, his question left hovering in the air.

He thought. The woodsman had said Bedivere would make two handfuls, and the cook said little boys tongues would fit in one. What would fit in the other?

Bedivere stared uneasily into the broth.

"I don't like the woodsman," he told it.

The broth did nothing.

He scowled. Broth didn't listen, people listened. But grown-ups only listened to grown-ups, and he wasn't one. How could he tell people that the sick man needed help? The woodsman couldn't help him, because he was a woodsman, not a physician. The sick man had left with someone who couldn't help him.

Or maybe didn't even want to.

Bedivere bit his lip. If he told someone and they listened, would they be able to help the sick man?

Abandoning the broth, he wandered over to the deer to clean the butchering station. Bedivere was the unofficial 'extras worker', set on any minor thing that needed doing at the moment. He enjoyed saying it. It sounded important.

He bent down to pick up the blood bucket, and paused, staring in perplexity.

The blood bucket was the worst part of being the 'extras worker'. It was a large, metal bucket that was placed under the table where animals from the hunt were brought in. The table had grooves carved into it, leading off the edge to where the blood bucket sat on the floor.

Generally, the animal's throat was cut, and it hoisted from hooks above the table so all the excess blood could drain away. WIth a deer, the blood bucket had overflowed on more than one occasion.

Except now, the bucket was hardly half-full.

"What happened to the blood?" Bedivere asked a scullery maid rushing by.

The maid looked at the bucket and shuddered. "Ugh! There's blood in there, don't you see?"

"Yes, but there's not enough."

The maid looked at him with startled repugnance. "I - well, I never! You should be glad someone took the rest away from you then, if you want to play with it! Demon-child!"

"But_ I_ take it away."

The maid, however, had scurried off at top speed as soon as she finished talking. Bedivere sighed, and chalked it up to grown-ups being grown-ups. Why didn't she just say she didn't know? Grown-ups seemed to hate doing that. Maybe they wanted to know everything, but it didn't work out right?

Bedivere grasped the blood bucket's handle and lifted it. Since it was much lighter than usual, he had no trouble carrying it out the door into the tiny courtyard where scraps and such were tossed.

He set it down and started to tip it over, then stopped.

Something was teasing him, a small something that he felt was very important. A question that had been asked, and a thing that had been said...

**_Are you looking for the sick man?_**

That was it! The Knight had been looking for someone, and he had never answered Bedivere's question. The Knight could be looking for the sick man, which meant that maybe he could get help! Except...

The Knight didn't know the sick man was with the woodsman. That meant wherever the woodsman and sick man were, the Knight wouldn't be there. So even if the Knight was looking for the sick man, that didn't mean he would_ find_ the sick man. That would mean the sick man could get worse because the woodsman didn't care enough to get a physician. He could even die! Bedivere was old enough to know what dying was.

The sick man shouldn't die. He didn't even look like a full grown-up.

Bedivere straightened and nodded firmly to himself. The Knight needed to know where the sick man was, and Bedivere knew where he was. Grown-ups didn't listen to little boys.

Except the sick man would die if the Knight couldn't find him.

So Bedivere would_ make_ the Knight listen.


	15. Chapter 15

**I've received applause for little Bedivere, who I also think is adorable. Don't worry, he's safe from me.**

**Here's a little tidbit: I took a cue from J. K. Rowling, and mentioned something a few chapters ago that will become VERY important later on. See if you can guess what it is...**

**Merlin really isn't mine (of course, that's what I have to ****_tell_**** you...)**

**And...what you have all been waiting for...Merlin!**

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Merlin returned to consciousness with a groan. What had happened? Was there another assassin?

Carefully he cracked open his eyelids, trying to ignore what felt like stones _pinging_ off the walls of his skull.

He was in a one-room cabin. Furnishings were sparse, with no personal touches anywhere in sight. He was in a corner, to the left of the doorway.

Merlin looked around in confusion. Why was he here? Where _was_ here? What had happened? Why did it feel as if something vital was missing?

Merlin's heartbeat quickened and he closed his eyes._ Is Arthur in danger?_

Panic threatened to bury him, looming on the horizon. Merlin breathed deeply, in and out. He had to remain calm, no matter what. If he panicked, he didn't know if he could remain rational. He needed all the facts before jumping to conclusions.

It took several seconds to realize that there was something missing. Something that was part of him, something he used to define his entire being. The headache redoubled as he caught his breath.

His magic was gone.

It wasn't out of reach, or pushed out of the way. It was simply _gone_, as if it had never existed, as if it hadn't run through him like the blood in his veins since the moment he was born.

It had simply..._evaporated._

Merlin could hardly think through the headache raging inside his head, seeming to originate from somewhere on the back of his skull. Bells were clanging and booming discordantly while his thoughts shrieked _where is it where is it WHERE IS IT_ growing increasingly louder and louder as panic threatened to close in and it tried to be heard over the bells that were _pounding_ and_ what is going on where is Arthur..._

_Arthur._

Desperately, Merlin grasped on to the one thing he knew to be stable, solid ground in an endless ocean determined to pull him under.

_Stay sane. You need to stay sane for Arthur. He might need you._

Merlin took deep, measured breaths, repeating it in a mantra, linking him back to stability.

It was a few minutes before he was calm enough to open his eyes again. This time, he looked at himself.

He was relatively unscathed. Save for the lump on the back of his head, there were no more injuries, other than a few scrapes and bruises. Those were most likely from being moved while he was unconscious. He knew from experience how unwieldy someone who was incapable of movement could be. Only then did Merlin notice the cuff around his right wrist.

His first thought was, _Wonderful. Deeper scars._

His second thought was, _Why is it so small?_

Indeed, in Merlin's experience, manacles were usually large and thick, obviously to prevent prisoners from escaping their chains by force alone. If this cuff was put on someone like Percival, he would be out with one rush of adrenaline.

_You're not Percival, so it doesn't really matter if it's smaller_, a part of his mind noted.

He looked closer, and saw the cuff was covered in runes.

Goosebumps rose on Merlin's skin as he realized that the cuff was the thing that had separated him from his magic. He grasped it with his left hand, and attempted to pull it off. No luck.

He tried twisting it a few more times until he gave up. Only then did he notice his left ankle had a manacle on it, a real one, with a short chain attached to a bolt in the floor.

"Alright," he said aloud, deciding to gather his thoughts in order, "I need to figure out...whatever's going on."

He took another deep breath. How to do that?

Well, when all is lost, start at the beginning. What did he last remember? There had been the tense..._conversation_ with Agravaine...then Gwaine pulling him into the room and telling him oh-so-casually that they had all heard that particular verbal duel - _thanks for that, Gwaine, nearly made my heart stop_ - and subsequent questioning...unthinkingly revealing his scars...and...a deer...

Merlin blinked. Some of his memories were jumbled, and he wasn't sure what he remembered was real. There was a very clear memory of a deer with one eye, and for some reason he felt it was important. But hadn't he been in Arthur's chambers with everyone else, asking what the plan was to deal with Agravaine?

Merlin rubbed his hand against his forehead. He wondered, rather guiltily, if this was what Arthur felt like every time he woke from being knocked unconscious, by Merlin or otherwise. Probably. He told himself sternly that he really should find another way of getting Arthur safely out of the way, because over a dozen blows like this would negate the term of 'safely'.

Again, the thought of Arthur sobered him. He needed to get out, because if Merlin was a prisoner it was usually to clear the way to Arthur. Merlin decided to make a list of facts to make it easier on his pounding head.

_One: I was kidnapped._

_Two: The person who did it knows about my magic._

_Three: They found a way around that._

_Four: They are clever._

_Five: If I do not get out, Arthur will die._

_Six: I cannot get out._

Merlin's head jerked around at the sudden sound of the door opening.


	16. Chapter 16

"He's _what?_"

Arthur froze upon hearing Gwaine speak.

"He's _missing_, princess. He's _gone. And who do you think took him?"_

Arthur was still for a moment, rooted to the spot, then snapped around and strode over to his uncle. Agravaine was stirring feebly, still discombobulated from Gwaine's attack. He blinked blearily, then his eyes focused enough to see his nephew standing over him.

"Ah, Arthur. I'm glad you were nearby. Thank you for restraining - "

Without a word, Arthur bent over and abruptly jerked Agravaine upright. His fists twisted in the material of his uncle's cloak as he said in an even voice, "Where is he, uncle?"

Agravaine blinked again, a frown appearing on his face. "I - I'm sorry?"

"You will be." Arthur's voice remained perfectly calm. "Where is he, uncle?"

"What are you talking about, Arthur?"

Arthur could hear the hesitancy in Agravaine's words, the slight, nearly undetectable edge of fear creeping into his voice.

_**You mean you'll kill me.**_

_**Yes.**_

"I am ordering you," Arthur replied in the exact same tone as before, "as your king and ruler, to Tell. Me. Where. Merlin. Is."

Agravaine's eyes widened, and he stumbled, nearly falling over. Only Arthur's grip on him prevented him from collapsing. "I - really don't - "

_"Now."_

Agravaine blanched, the sudden white pallor of his face making the blood stand out even more sharply. Arthur saw nothing of the uncle he had trusted just a few hours before. The man before him was a traitor, misusing the trust his nephew had given him, and had_ hurt Merlin_. Arthur thrust every emotion he felt into his demand; the sharp panic cutting into him for Merlin's safety, the deep, gaping wound of betrayal, the raging fury that had been slowly growing inside, burning him deeper than the scar on Merlin's chest, the heavy desperation threatening to drown him.

Even Guinevere took a step back at the word, icily cold and harsh with the tightly suppressed emotions.

Agravaine could only make a terrified squeak.

Then he passed out from fear.

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Bedivere was lost.

He had never wandered around the castle before. Generally, he got the impression that grown-ups didn't want dirty little boys wandering around the castle. So he didn't know where he was, and didn't know where the Knight was either.

It struck him as funny. The Knight was looking for the sick man, and Bedivere was looking for the Knight, and none of them could find each other. Until he remembered the that he was the only way the sick man would be able to not die. Then it wasn't funny anymore.

"Where is the Knight?" he asked a man passing by.

The man glanced down at him in amusement. "I'm a knight."

"Not you. I don't know if he's a real knight but I need to tell him where the sick man is because I don't think the woodsman wants to help."

The other Knight raised his eyebrows, muttered something with a slight smile under his breath, and walked away.

Bedivere looked after him in confusion. "I'm not a demon-child, I promise!" he called after him, but the Knight started to bend over and laugh uproariously. Bedivere shrugged in frustration. What made grown-ups ignore him, even when he specifically told them he wasn't being a liar?

Sighing, he started off in the maze of corridors.

How could he find the Knight? It wasn't like he could search the whole castle. He was only five, and his legs were already growing tired. If he could just find _someone_ who would listen to him, and knew where the Knight was -

_Oh!_

Bedivere stopped, eyes wide. There _was_ someone who would listen, because he was supposed to take care of his people! He could go to the prince! Surely the prince would listen to him, and he would know where the Knight was too!

Pleased with his new plan, Bedivere set off.

Then he stopped.

Where was the prince?

Well, Bedivere told himself, the prince would be easier to find than the Knight. He didn't even know the Knight's name, whereas everyone knew the prince. He frowned.

How would he get someone to tell him where the prince was? Most likely, the grown-ups would ignore him like always, and they would think that a little boy couldn't possibly know something important enough to tell the prince. They would shoo him away, and he wouldn't find the prince, and the prince wouldn't find the Knight, and the Knight wouldn't find the sick man, and the sick man would stay with the woodsman and he would die.

An idea struck Bedivere.

He sprinted down the corridors, and stopped in front of the first guard he saw. "Sir?" he asked.

The guard squinted down at him. "What?"

"I have to clean the candles in the corridor outside the prince's room, but I don't know where it is. Where is it?"

The guard huffed. "Up two floors that staircase, left turn then two rights."

Bedivere grinned. "Thank you!"

He sprinted up the stairs, pushing aside the ache building in his legs. In little time he had reached the large doors leading into the prince's room. They were unguarded, which Bedivere took to mean the prince wasn't there. He expected it, but it was still disappointing.

He reached up and grasped the handle, throwing all his weight against the heavy door. It creaked open, making Bedivere lose his balance and tumble facefirst onto the floor of the room.

Annoyed, he picked himself up. Sometimes he really hated being small.

The room was big._ Really_ big. Bedivere turned around in circles, gaping at the size.

"This isn't a bedroom!" he said indignantly to nobody in particular. "It's a kitchen but with a bed in it! Only kitchens can be this big."

Bedivere wondered why the prince wanted to sleep in a kitchen that had been turned into a bedroom. He felt like he could get lost in here. What if he couldn't find what he needed?

He spotted the desk to one side of the room and went over to it. Rummaging around, he grabbed what his plan needed - the most official-looking scroll there, with a ribbon around it and a blob of wax sealing it closed.

Smiling in triumph, Bedivere went out into the hallway and had just tugged the door closed when two guards rounded the corner. "Oi!" shouted one. "What are you doing?"

Bedivere looked in surprise at him. "What are you doing?"

"We're the next shift of guards. Now tell us why you're hanging around Prince Arthur's chambers."

Bedivere was nearly struck speechless. Not only did the prince live in a kitchen, but his room was guarded even when he wasn't there?

He had a lot to learn about castle life, it would seem.

Thankfully, Bedivere remembered his plan just in time. He straightened up as stiff as his back would go, and put his feet together the way he had seen the noblemen stand. He held out the stolen scroll in what he hoped was an official-looking manner.

"I have a missive from Lord Baraclay, to be delivered directly to Prince Arthur." Bedivere tried to pronounce the words right. He'd heard the pages practicing their delivering before, though he was wishing now he'd paid closer attention.

The two guards swapped incredulous glances. The second one, the one that hadn't spoken yet, said, "Really? Well, then, you'd better go run and deliver your little missive. What does Lord Baraclay want, hmm? He's already donated a good deer, and gone. Who are you? His bastard grandson, then?"

"No." Bedivere didn't know what _bastard_ meant, but the way the guard said it made him think it was nothing good. "I am Lord Baraclay's page, and I must ask where the prince is. The seal is - real."

He'd been about to say _genuine_ when he realized he didn't know how to pronounce it. Bedivere held out the scroll further for the guards to see and held his breath. If they didn't believe him, if they somehow knew he had stolen it...

The second guard laughed, but the first guard looked at the seal, and blinked. He elbowed his companion in the ribs and shot him a look.

He turned to Bedivere and said, "I saw the prince heading for the west corridors a while ago. Someone down there could probably tell you."

Bedivere couldn't contain his grin. "Thank you!"

He took off at top speed, leaving the two guard bewildered.

The hallways were still twisty and confusing, but as soon as he showed the scroll he was given all the guidance people could provide. Within a few minutes he found himself in a corridor with heavy, fancy doors like the ones on the prince's room.

Bedivere came up close to the door that was partway open, and listened carefully.

"We could take him to Gaius."

"And he'll ask us why Gwaine attacked him in the first place. Do you want to tell him Merlin is missing?"

"Does anyone else have a better idea?"

"I suggest I beat him awake."

Bedivere started with surprise, and knocked his head against the wood. Overbalancing, he fell against the door and pushed it open, sprawling onto the floor the second time that day. He made an _oof_ sound as he hit the stone.

Twisting around, he could see the grown-ups in the room had fallen silent and were staring, startled, straight at him.

Bedivere's eyes focused on the Knight. "Oh! I found you!"


	17. Chapter 17

**I really have to say, I currently have no idea where this story is going to end up. I'm literally just making it up as I go. So, whether Melrlin keeps his eyes is up in the air (though I am leaning towards him keeping them).**

**Just keep it in mind, kay?**

**Again, thank you oodles for all the lovely reviews, my loyal readers.**

**The nice doctors here say I don't own Merlin, but I know better!**

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A man walked into the cabin.

Merlin's headache increased, as if trying to tell him something. The man looked...familiar...

Without acknowledging Merlin, the man went over to the table in the center of the room and set something down on it. Then he went over to the fireplace where a brass pot was hanging. He bent down, pulled a flint and striker from his pocket, and started to light the wood piled there.

Merlin watched in perplexity. This must be his kidnapper, for he hadn't shown any surprise at a young man chained to his floor, but he was acting as if Merlin was a chair in the corner, inanimate and inconsequential.

The fire lit, the man stood and Merlin saw he would be shorter than him by a head. He went over to a bucket in the corner. He hoisted it up and poured what looked like half of the water inside into the pot. Setting it down, he went over to the table and sat, then began to fiddle with the something he had put on the table, his back to Merlin.

Merlin couldn't hold in his curiosity any longer. "Who are you?"

The small man stopped fiddling, and half turned on the chair, so that he could look Merlin in the eye. He regarded Merlin for a moment, then said casually, "Nobody knows."

Merlin blinked, then tried again. "What is your name?"

The small man said flatly, "I have no name."

_**I have no name.**_

Memories flew into place. The servant who had come to Arthur's room, the one-eyed deer with the mangled legs, the woodsman who had seemed so normal and unassuming, right up to when he had stated he had no name the moment the Merlin's world lost balance.

Anger overrode Merlin's still-aching head. He lifted himself to his feet, hand on the wall. "You - you stole -"

He only got out a few words before his vision pitched, the floor rolling up and down in waves. His hand slipped from the wall, and he crashed to the floor amidst endless shrieks of _where is it where is it WHERE IS IT WHEREISIT-_

"You're powerful." Merlin heard the sound of someone talking but the syllables were meaningless noise, just more nonsense because the world had lost all sense and _WHEREISITWHEREISIT_**_WHEREISIT-_**

Snick, snick, there was another noise but it meant nothing, the only thing that meant something was gone and it had abandoned him, his world was splitting open right down the middle and there was nothing inside, nothing at all because it had been stolen away from him and he wouldn't get it back ever and he would fail to protect Arthur -

_Arthur._

Again, Merlin grasped onto his small island of stability. _Calm down, Arthur needs you. Calm down, Arthur needs you. Calm down..._

Several minutes passed before Merlin opened his eyes to see the small man staring at him with flat, dead eyes. "You're strong. Not many could stay sane with what you lost."

"What?" Merlin croaked out.

The small man seemed to be debating whether to reply. Finally he said, "If you practice magic, you allow it inside your soul. The bracelet removes it. Having some of their soul removed wasn't a pleasant experience for most." A faint emotion crept over the small man's face, and Merlin shuddered as he realized it was nostalgic enjoyment. "Try not to make sudden moves."

He turned back around to the table.

Merlin barely suppressed a groan as his headache fluxuated. The pressure grew until he could barely remember to breathe. _If this is what it feels like Arthur I'm sorry..._

He concentrated on simply pulling air in and pushing it out, blocking any other thoughts. The paralyzing panic wasn't there, leading him to believe this was solely from his headache. Within a minute the pain had lessened to an if not ignorable, then at least bearable level.

Merlin looked up at the small man. His magic was gone, he could barely stand without some kind of panic attack, and even thinking clearly was a struggle over the still clanging bells in his head. Quite literally, talking was the only weapon he had left.

"Why were you gone?" he asked. He understood that it was obvious he wasn't going anywhere, and the woodsman could have probably just left him there for hours without worry, but it was still an odd thing to do when one had a captive.

Merlin could see the small man pause, then say, "I had to get more practice."

For some reason, the word made the hairs on the back of Merlin's neck stiffen.

Something called for his attention, something that was important to his situation. Merlin thought for a moment, and it suddenly became clear.

_He said it takes the magic__** from**__ me..._

_But magic__** is**__ me..._

_Then what -_

_Snick, snick._

The sound made Merlin pause, and a cold feeling of dread forced it's way into his throat as he realized what it was.

The small man was sharpening a knife.


	18. Chapter 18

Elyan wondered, often, if he wouldn't have been better off just staying away from Camelot. Knightship was appealing, as well as being able to reconnect with his sister, but was it worth the insanity that seemed to be normal going-ons in the castle? Honestly, while they had reacted with horror at the Dorocha, nobody had even seemed surprised.

The fact that _he_ hadn't been surprised spoke volumes about how much this blasted city was influencing him.

An off part of him wondered at the dissonance of not being surprised at an army of soul-sucking spirits of death descending upon his home, but being startled by a tiny boy falling into the room.

Elyan looked at Gwaine, who the boy seemed to be addressing. Gwaine looked as blank as the others.

The boy managed to get his feet under him and stand up. Elyan estimated the top of his head, covered by a peculiar cap, would barely reach his waist. The boy seemed to notice what room he was in, and spun around with his mouth open.

Spotting the bed in the corner, he exclaimed, "_Another_ kitchen?"

Elyan blinked.

His sister stepped forward hesitantly. The boy saw her and he smiled "Hello! My name's Bedivere. I was looking for the prince, but now I found the knight." He gestured wildly toward Gwaine, who looked even more perplexed.

Guinevere knelt down in front of Bedivere. His eyes widened to a comical degree. She said, "Bedivere?"

He nodded furiously. "That's me."

Gwen shifted. "Bedivere, am I to understand you want to speak with Sir Gwaine?"

Bedivere nodded again, then looked over to Gwaine. "Oh! That's your name. And you are a knight! I wasn't sure. That's good, because you can help."

"Bedivere," Gwen recaptured the boy's attention, "We have to do something at the moment, but as soon as we're done you may speak to Sir Gwaine, alright?"

"No! No no no no no! I know where the sick man is!"

"Sick man?"

"Yes! The sick man! He went with the woodsman and you have to help him! He's sick!"

Gwen shook her head and glanced at the standing people around her for help. Elyan stepped forward and addressed the boy in what he hoped would be a gentle tone. "Look, we're very busy right now. A friend of ours is missing and we have to find him."

"_Yes!_ You're looking for the sick man _and I know where he is!_"

In a blur Gwaine and Arthur were crouching on either side of Gwen. "Merlin?" Arthur asked urgently, "You know where he is?"

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Bedivere grew flustered. Suddenly all the grown-ups in the room were crowded around him, and they were looking at him oddly. Nobody had ever paid that much attention to him before. Was this what it was like to be a grown-up?

The man with the hair like straw who had spoken reached out and grabbed his shoulder. "Where is Merlin?"

Bedivere shrank back.

The pretty lady, the one who acted like a mother, put a hand on the straw-haired man's shoulder. "Arthur," she said.

The straw-haired man blinked and looked at Bedivere. He frowned slightly and let go of him.

"Mate," said the Knight, Sir Gwaine, "can you tell us where Merlin is?"

"Is that the sick man's name?"

The pretty lady said in a patient voice, "I don't know. Can you tell us what the sick man looked like?"

_Oh!_ That was easy. Then they would know for certain that the sick man was their friend, and they would find him, and he could be taken to a physician before he died. Bedivere smiled. The pretty lady was very smart.

"He's tall," Bedivere said, then thought that that wasn't good enough, so he stretched his hand above his head so they could see that he knew just how tall, "And he has black hair, and a red scarf."

The pretty lady's eyes widened, then she took an obvious effort to give Bedivere shaky smile. "That...that's...good, Bedivere."

She took a deep breath, and her next words were very quiet.

"Can you...do...is Merlin...okay, Bedivere?"

Bedivere frowned. "No. I said, he's sick, and he needs help. That's why I found Sir Gwaine, because he said he was looking for the sick man and only me knows where the sick man is."

"Alright." The Knight sounded tense. "Where is he, then?"

"He's with the woodsman. I don't like the woodsman. He's," Bedivere paused, trying to find the right words to tell them how scary the woodsman was. He couldn't just say scary, because that would sound like he was being a baby. "He's a demon-man."

"Demon man." The straw-haired man muttered. He looked at Bedivere and asked carefully, "Does that mean he's a sorcerer?"

Bedivere blinked. "I don't know. Does it?" Did that mean the kitchen maid thought Bedivere was a sorcerer? Would she accuse him of using magic? But sorcerers were burned, like the rabbit that had fallen into the fire and got turned into a black and crispy thing. He began to panic. "Am I going to be burned up?" He didn't want to be burned up, because he'd heard a sorcerer being burned once when he was just beginning to work in the kitchens and they sounded so _scared_. Tears began to leak from his eyes.

"No! No, no, Bedivere, you'll be fine," the pretty lady soothed, and she leaned forward to hug him. He clutched his arms around her. "You were very clever to bring this to us, and you won't be hurt, I promise." She stroked his hair.

Sniffling, Bedivere calmed down. This was nice. The pretty lady acted just like he thought a mother might. And she promised he wouldn't get burned up like the rabbit, so he decided to trust her on that one.

The pretty lady asked him softly, "Bedivere, do you know where the woodsman is?"

Bedivere nodded. "Oh, yes. He's my papa."


	19. Chapter 19

**Okay, let me tell you exactly what it was like yesterday.**

_**Me: *typing innocently and wrapping up the chapter, excitedly wondering how it would end***_

_**Fingers: Let us finish it! It needs a nice closing sentence!**_

_**Me: *nodding* Okay, you can take over for the brain.**_

_**Fingers: *type last sentence***_

_**Me: *jaw drops***_

_**pause**_

_**Me: *looking at fingers, computer then back at fingers* Is there some war with the brain that I don't know about?**_

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Merlin stared at the woodsman's back with trepidation. He paid no mind to it and continued to sharpen the knife.

_Six: I cannot get out._

The small man was going to kill him.

He was completely powerless, exhausted, immobilized and could barely think straight. The pain radiated from the back of his head, bouncing around his skull like a demented echo. Merlin couldn't look at the fire, it was far too bright.

_Snick, snick, snick._

The grating scrape grew louder and louder the more Merlin tried to ignore it. Absently, he winced as he recalled how often Arthur had asked he be a bit quieter after he'd woken from an unscheduled knockout, and how scarcely Merlin listened.

_I really am sorry, Arthur._

Sorry for hiding. Sorry for not explaining. Sorry for keeping secrets. Sorry for cloaking his life in shadows so well concealed nobody ever knew they were there, sorry for holding back, sorry for being not so different from all the traitors who misused Arthur's trust.

Sorry for failing once more, the last time he ever would.

_Snick, snick._

Merlin could tell the small man didn't see him as a person, someone with thoughts and emotions and loved ones. He was seen as a thing, a task to be completed with no more pity than Arthur when he was hunting. Less, actually, because Arthur always made sure the animals didn't know pain before they died.

It struck Merlin that was why he was still alive. Had the small man simply wished him dead, he would have killed him when he was unconscious at the castle. One needed to be conscious before they could fight back.

But, instead, he was a prisoner in what he assumed to be a secluded area, kept weakened, and, from the faint trace of pleasure in the small man's voice when talking of the cuff, his jailer seemed to have a sadistic streak. So not only would he die, but he would die in pain.

And Arthur would follow.

_Snick, snick, snick._

No. _No_. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This _couldn't_ be how it was supposed to be. Merlin felt the panic closing in again as his headache intensified. Arthur would not, _could not die_. Everything he had done, everything Merlin had sacrificed was for the sole reason of making sure his best friend lived.

_Arthur happened._

The words repeated over and over in his head, shouting for him to say something, do something, _fix it._ What was the point of giving everything for someone if you ultimately failed in the end?

Instinctively, Merlin reached for his magic, the one thing that had always been there.

The world exploded inside his head.

Colors shifted in and out of his vision, flashing and dancing crazily. The _snick, snick_ of the knife scraped against his brain, stabbing into his ears and the floor pitched and threw itself upwards at a steep slant, sending Merlin tumbling down the slope and warning bells from the towers of Camelot clanged and bonged against his head, crashing into him and shrieking _WHERE IS IT WHERE IS IT ARTHURARTHURARTHUR_ as Merlin distantly realized he was screaming -

And out of nowhere, he felt something in his mind _give_, and a lightning bolt of power raced through him at the speed of light, obliterating thought as his mind screamed one last time to be free.

The last, disjointed image he saw before falling into blackness was the small man crumpling to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.


	20. Chapter 20

**HELLO, peoples! NO, I am NOT dead! OR in a coma! Or OTHERWISE incapacitated! I just needed some time to figure out where I wanted this fic to go! Do I sound ODD? Somewhat manic? That's odd. Maybe because I have A NEW CHAPTER! Did I say odd TWICE?**

**ON WITH THE FIC!**

**The nice doctors let me out because I stopped telling them I owned Merlin, but I just don't say it in ENGLISH anymore...**

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Arthur felt the desperate_ thump, thump_ of his heart with every beat, as if it was reminding him that Merlin's might stop at any moment. He wanted to shake Bedivere, who seemed to be acting with agonizing slowness.

Of course, Arthur was clearheaded enough to realize that would only scare the tiny boy, who had reacted unexpectedly strongly to the idea that 'demon-man' meant 'sorcerer'.

_Oh_, thought Arthur, as he watched Bedivere pull away from Guinevere, rubbing his eyes, _under the laws of Camelot, if his father is a sorcerer..._ but he had looked genuinely confused when Arthur had asked, so the woodsman most likely wasn't a magic-user.

"Your papa?" Guinevere asked, looking inquiringly at him.

Bedivere nodded, considerably calmer now. "Yes. He wasn't a very nice papa, so I ran away. And I made myself different, so he didn't even know who I was!" He paused and looked inquiringly at Guinevere. "What does _two handfuls_ mean?"

"Never mind that," Gwaine said impatiently, "_where is he?"_

"You go out of Camelot, and find the witch tree, and..." Bedivere trailed off, frowning. He tried again uncertainly. "That's a big tree, and it has faces in it, so you know what it is...and then you go to the snigger bush, because it laughed at me and it's mean..."

Arthur felt his stomach drop in acid. Obviously Bedivere only knew the way to wherever his father was through childlike logic, landmarks and things that would take his notice being his guide. Any instructions he gave would be incomprehensible to them. He saw the dawning realization on the other knight's faces as well.

"T-then you get to the strings -" the tiny boy seemed to reach the same conclusion Arthur had, and stopped, tears threatening to spill over again. He looked at Guinevere and said with a slight edge of panic, "You c-can't follow those, cause you d-don't think like me, so you can't find the sick man, so h-he's gonna die, and because of me -"

He started to cry again, but Guinevere was as frozen as the rest of the knights and Arthur, Bedivere's words crashing around the room with the force of a castle falling to it's knees, or maybe that was just what it felt like.

_h-he's gonna die_

_he's going to die_

_Merlin is going to die._

The words burned into Arthur's brain, etching themselves into his skull, pounding louder and louder as if they wanted to drown out the beating of his heart so he could no longer say Merlin's was beating also, because surely his would stop if Merlin's was still and he felt the words, overflowing with smug finality, _ripping_ into him from the outside the same time the_ thing_ returned and shrieked into his ears_ no no nononono_ as it thrashed inside him with dagger-sharp claws that shredded him to bloody scraps from inside-out...

Abruptly he stood, grasped the boy's arm and moved him toward the door.

"Arthur?" Guinevere called, shaking off the stupor. "What are you doing?"

Arthur looked down at the tiny boy and felt a mental stab of worry, but it was barely a prick compared to the still-swirling maelstrom of fear for Merlin's safety. He was surprised when his voice came out sounding even and matter-of-fact. "He's the only one who knows where he is."

"You - you can't take him _with_ you!" Fear for the little boy momentarily overshadowed the fear for her friend. "I've worked in the kitchens, I know him, he's only five years old!"

Inwardly, Arthur flinched, but he replied, "I don't want to, Guinevere, but we can't spend hours looking for a tree with faces, or a bush that laughs. He can get us to the place quicker, and we'll look out for him."

Gwaine nodded, though unease was plainly written on his face. "Yeah, don't worry about it. We need to find Merlin fast."

Hesitantly the other knights agreed. Arthur knew what was going through their heads. It was the duty of a knight to protect innocents, to pull danger away from them. Now they were deliberately bringing an innocent to danger - and a_ child_ at that. Anyone would pause.

Arthur glanced down at Bedivere. He let go of the boy's arm and forced his tone to be gentle. "Do you think you can take us there, Bedivere?"

There was fear on the young face, fear that Arthur felt was for older and more experienced men who knew there was something to be afraid of. Bedivere met Arthur's eyes and quickly shifted his tearstained ones away. "Are you g-gonna order me to?"

Arthur's heart sank like stone.

He couldn't blame the boy, who had already shown courage finding them, which couldn't have been easy for a tiny kitchen boy. From the few sentences he had said regarding his father, he wasn't a good man, bad enough so that his son, barely out of toddler age, had run away. Arthur got the distinct feeling it was for a good reason. To ask a child to go back to the one thing that inspired true fear in them was asking too much.

Still, the words pounded into his head, over and over, until they were deeper than any of Merlin's scars.

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Bedivere could tell his answer had hurt the straw-haired man - the prince. But he couldn't stop remembering the little cabin, the bolt on the floor and his p - the woodsman, who had never hurt him but always seemed like he _might_ at any given second.

_I'm lying_, Bedivere realized. _I'm lying to me. I said to myself I'm scared the woodsman will let the sick man die, but I know the woodsman is going to make him die. That's why I needed to find the Knight so he could find the sick man._

_They can't find the sick man without me. Without me the sick man will die._

_I can't let the sick man die._

The prince spoke, and even Bedivere could hear the desolation in his voice. "No, Bedivere, I won't order you." He shook his head. "Just...give us the rest of the directi -"

"I'll take you."

Bedivere didn't know how his voice came out so strong, but it caught the attention of everyone in the room. The prince's eyes widened, and Bedivere hastily remmebered to wipe away the tears from a few moments ago. "You...will?"

He nodded, hoping that he was hiding how scared he was and looked brave now.

"You're sure?" the prince asked, but his head appeared to be racing and his eyes were alight with hope.

Bedivere nodded again, and the prince turned to the Knights and the pretty lady. "Elyan, go get four horses. He can ride with me." The dark-skinned Knight rushed out the door.

"Four?" the pretty lady stood up. She looked a little mad, but also sad too, because it looked like she was about to cry. "Arthur, I -"

"Please, Guinevere." the prince interrupted her, sounding urgent and gesturing to Bedivere. "I'm risking enough bringing him along. I can't put you in danger as well. Percival needs to stay behind too, to get that jaw looked at."

The giant Knight, who towered over Bedivere, glared at Sir Gwaine. His face looked funny, the bottom half crooked. Sir Gwaine cast his eyes anywhere but the giant Knight.

"Also, someone needs to keep an eye on _him_." the prince spat out the last word, nodding toward the wall. Bedivere looked and saw a bundle of clothes. Why did someone need to stay with a bundle of clothes? Were they dangerous? How could clothes be dangerous?

Reluctantly, the pretty lady and the giant Knight agreed to stay. The prince turned to Bedivere and led him out into the hallway, with Sir Gwaine and the Knight with hair slightly darker than the prince.

The dark-straw-haired Knight glanced down and gave him a small smile. "That was very brave, Bedivere."

Bedivere bit his lip. "I can't let the sick man die. Not like the others."

He didn't see the shocked glances between the Knights as he began to run over the way to the woodsman's house in his head, the one he had hoped to never have to travel again.


	21. Chapter 21

The small man groaned as he woke, his brain wondering what had happened.

Remembrance flooded back to him. The servant-sorcerer, sharpening his knife, the boy going from absolutely silent to suddenly screaming at the top of his lungs, and blackness closing in like putting out a torch.

A wave of nausea engulfed him, and he moaned again. He was an assassin, used to working from the shadows and always, _always_ with complete control over his victims. Pain was not something he was used to. For a fleeting moment he wished the boy was still living with him, but discarded the idea. He'd never hurt the boy before, but that was when he hadn't had a reason to.

A memory unfolded in his head, still reeling in confusion. The boy had come back from being out in the woods...

_"Papa?"_

_The small man looked at the boy with no expression. The boy flushed and said, "Woodsman? H-he's not waking up."_

_The small man glanced briefly over to the man chained to the floor, then back to the boy. It was rather unfortunate he had come back to the cabin at this time. Ten minutes later and the body would be gone._

_"He's dead." the small man said bluntly and turned back to the fire._

_"Dead?" there was evident confusion in the boy's voice. "What's dead?"_

_The small man resisted the impulse to sigh in irritation. "Dead means he won't wake up. Ever."_

_There was a short silence, and a quavering voice asked, "Why did he die?"_

_The small man considered. On one hand, the boy was annoying him. It would be fun to see his face if he knew the woodsman had killed the man. On the other hand, though, the boy had had a few conversations with the man and might recoil from the woodsman if he knew that. Rebellion was dangerous, even if it was only from a three year-old boy. Plus, they sometimes had to go to the market in Camelot. It would prove a tricky situation if the boy blurted out his companion had killed a man._

_So the small man said, "He was sick. If you're sick, you can die."_

_The boy was quiet after that._

The small man blinked his eyes open as the nausea receded. He hadn't thought of that conversation in months. Not for the first time, he cursed himself for not cutting the boy's throat when he had a chance. A small child who knew who he was, where he was and what he did was a serious liability. If the exact right - or exact wrong - person pulled it out of him the woodsman was in deep water.

But those were thoughts for another time. Right now, he had a sorcerer who was apparently quite a bit more powerful than anticipated, and a good deal more unstable.

Slowly, the small man levered himself into a sitting position, where he could see the sorcerer.

He frowned, an uncommon expression on his face. The sorcerer was still chained, on his side and clearly conscious. His eyes were open, and they flickered around the room, but there was no spark of...anything. No fear, or pain, or triumph, or even recognition.

That was it, the small man realized. The sorcerer obviously saw the room, the small man, the kettle on the fire, and he also heard the slight crackle of the wood and the groaning, obviously felt the floor under him and the chain on his leg, yet he didn't comprehend them. There was a look in his eyes, one that said he was experiencing more than one reality at once.

The small man couldn't help but feel slightly curious. What kind of sorcerer had he trapped, one that had managed to overcome the cuff, if only for an instant, and produce this kind of reaction? True, other sorcerers had gone insane, but they had raved and wept and tried desperately to bargain with anyone who would listen, imaginary or not.

This sorcerer looked more like...like his soul had been torn away.

Abruptly, the small man shook his head. Trying to figure out the _why_ to any situation was useless. The only way to survive was to simply deal with _what_ happened.

And this little incident did not change his plan in the slightest.

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Colors he had no name for swirled in and out of his vision, sounds and sensations he'd never experienced pressed against him, vying for attention. Years passed with each breath he took, but he couldn't tell whether he was moving forward or back.

Did he even exist anymore? Perhaps he didn't, because everything he was seemed to be gone. Memories, experiences, thoughts and emotions seemed to unwind from his tangled mind and spin away into the darkness, their bindings gone.

There was someone he had to protect...

But their name slipped away from him into the darkness. He began to panic. That wasn't right. He knew there was someone important, someone he had to protect at any and ALL costs, but surely he would know their name.

_Who am I?_

The thought - _can someone who doesn't exist have thoughts?_ - sent him reeling as his mind came up empty - _is it empty if there's nothing there in the first place?_ - and he realized he didn't know his name either.

Images came to him, images so incomprehensible he wasn't sure they were from his own reality. But could he remember his reality? There were colors and sounds and images there, too. Did that make the things he was experiencing real or false? How could he tell the difference?

Time existed in his reality, but not here. Here it took millennia to draw a breath and lifetimes went by in a heartbeat. He shouted and screamed as loud as he could, but no sound can come from something that doesn't exist. He knew there was something he needed to do, something he desperately tried to fight for, memories fading away just like him as he became quieter and quieter and he tried to remember some...one...

Forms and things moved around him, paying him no mind. He got the faint feeling they were alive, but it was hard to know what alive was anymore. Did _alive_ mean _exist?_ He didn't exist, but did that mean he wasn't alive?

Did he want to be?


	22. Chapter 22

**Hola, muchachos!**

**So, I was going to write the rest of this fic in Swahili, until I realized I don't know Swahili. So I settled for English, which on second thought is probably for the best, because my loyal readers would most likely turn me to shark chum if I did that.**

**Sorry for the longer wait, wonderful peoples, but I am proceeding with extreme caution as the war between my brain and fingers is ongoing, and they are currently not cooperating with each other. Somehow, my fingers learned how to build mental machine guns, and my brain is enacting several diabolical schemes to bring them down.**

**They called a temporary truce, however, when they saw the response to last chapter, stunning them so completely they worked together on this chapter almost without realizing it.**

**So, remember, more review flash grenades to keep them discombobulated!**

**I have a foolproof plan to go back in time and have the rights of Merlin signed over to me impersonating whoever the current owner is. Anyone have some extra plutonium and a spare DeLorean?**

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The small man found himself looking over his shoulder to keep an eye on the sorcerer. When he caught himself, he shook his head, annoyed.

Yes, the sorcerer was powerful. But clearly he was somewhere far, far away now.

Well, nothing to be gained by putting it off. He'd get extra enjoyment in this one.

The small man picked up his knife and headed to the sorcerer. _Perhaps I'll break his legs, just so he can't run if he pulls another trick like that agai-_

The nausea hit, this time so potent he dropped to his knees. His head clanged and swelled, trying to grow big enough to dissipate the noise inside it as his stomach twisted in pain and his lungs, his lungs weren't taking in enough air to breath, and silver flashes hardly bigger than insects flew around his vision...

It took nearly a minute for the small man's head to clear, and he dimly realized he had backed up to the fireplace. The sorcerer hadn't moved, made a sound or even looked aware of what had happened, or had been about to happen.

Closing his eyes to fight the dizziness, the small man silently cursed the man who had hired him. Stupid git. Why hadn't he just realized the servant was a sorcerer and known his strength? That way, he wouldn't have underestimated the young man. Underestimation was dangerous.

Then again, who would have suspected the most powerful sorcerer he'd ever heard of, let alone see, would be the _personal servant_ of the _crown prince of Camelot?_ Were all sorcerers so stupid?

Well, actually, the sorcerer seemed to have hidden it very well. Idiotic and clever. That was a combination you didn't see all that often. Trust someone clever to do something clever, and trust someone idiotic to do something idiotic, but people like the sorcerer were unpredictable and therefore the most dangerous of all.

The small man opened his eyes, and was immediately on high alert.

The sorcerers eyes were moving back and forth, so quickly they were almost a blur. THey paused for what seemed like two seconds, then resumed. Otherwise, though, there was still the same disconnect.

Carefully, the small man stood and inched closer to the sorcerer. The eyes stopped.

Puzzled, he held out his hand and waved it back and forth in front of the sorcerer's face. No reaction. He stopped to peer closer, then waved again.

Nothing.

The small man shrugged.

It was most likely a good thing. The man's questions had begun to annoy him. Not that he couldn't have fixed that by cutting out his tongu-

His head exploded back into pain, cutting off his thoughts midformed. His heartbeat tripled, sending adrenaline shooting through his veins, but it was too much, too much inside of him crashing and banging around and there was nothing to let it out for so he would burn from the inside out because the adrenaline was flaming oil scorching through him and he couldn't get enough air...

Then, abruptly, it started to abate, until the small man realized he could breathe properly again, and realized he was yet again on the floor, pressed against the wall.

Damn _sorcerers._

He needed to remain rational. Panic would only be detrimental.

The small man reached up to rub his head.

And stopped.

He stared at his hand.

Frozen, his mind replayed when he had waved it in front of the sorcerer.

_Back and forth, quickly, stop. Again, quickly, stop._

Then he replayed the sorcerers eye movements that had prompted him to do so.

_Back and forth, quickly, stop. Again, quickly, stop._

_The sorcerer had been following his future movements._

He stared at the young man.

The sorcerer's eyes suddenly jumped to follow a trail from near his feet to the fireplace, causing the small man to scramble to his feet, heart pounding. Then the sorcerer's gaze lost focus, drifting away and becoming once more lost in the other reality the rest of him seemed to be in.

The small man followed this new trail with his eyes and his heart seemed to pound harder in his ears when he realized what the sorcerer had been seeing.

_Me, when I fell and found myself pressed against the fireplace._

He stared at the sorcerer, and found himself hoping the young man didn't comprehend what he was seeing. If he managed to accidentally predict the future, what could he do if he took conscious control of what he was doing?

Then, in a cold wave, another understanding broke free.

Backing away slowly, the small man moved himself to the opposite corner of where the sorcerer was. Was his theory true? He would have to test it, and if it was... well, that noble could find another assassin. The small man knew when to cut his losses.

Readying himself, the small man checked he was as far as he could get from the sorcerer in the one-room cabin. Then he closed his eyes, and thought of hurting the young man, of_ breaking_ his legs like the deer's, of feeling the bones_ crack_ and _crunch_ under his boot, crippling the sorcerer so he couldn't run away, couldn't run away like that blasted boy of his who he should have killed long ago...

The small man pulled himself away from the fantasy with difficulty. His caged insanity howled and snarled for release at the bait he had so temptingly dangled in front of it, and he felt _hungry_ just thinking of it...

With an effort, he pushed it away. It was always hard to predict, when his inner self would get loose. Sometimes he didn't let it out enough...

He shook his head and cleared his mind carefully. He thought of tying a knot, a neutral activity. Loop under, pull this way, bring that end over. Meanwhile, he edged closer to the sorcerer until he was standing over him, boots a few inches from the young man's face.

Abruptly, he felt his theory was, most likely, utterly unfounded and rather ludicrous. He felt a sense of annoyance at his paranoia. Well, the only way to prove it would be to do the other half of the test, so he'd best get on with it.

The small man closed his eyes, and thought of hurting the young man, of _breaking_ his legs like the deer's, of feeling the _cra-_

The world exploded, colrs streaking across his vision, not just silver but reds and greens, blues and yellows and he felt his body hit the floor, the crashings of pain overwhelming his mind as the incessant pounding and clanging beat into him, and the air was thinning, he couldn't get enough air in his lungs as spots danced between the colors painting his vision, filling his world until it would burst...

This time, it took longer for the episode to pass. As he once again found himself pressed against the wall of the cabin, the small man knew his theory was true. Three attacks, all at the exact moment he came close to the sorcerer and thought of harming him. It was nearly impossible to dismiss as a coincidence.

Damn _sorcerers._

While the small man was nursing his head, he didn't notice Merlin's eyes abruptly dart to the door, as if someone had come bursting in at top speed.

Or would.


	23. Chapter 23

**So, this chapter is most likely the second-most confusing piece I've ever written. Beware. It doesn't advance the plot much, but I feel all you should get some answers as to Merlin's condition. **

**Mimi (si) mwenyewe Merlin! Mimi (si) mwenyewe Merlin!**

**And, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer: REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!**

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It was hard to tell what was solid and what was not. Sensations drifted in and out of his awareness, through objects that appeared real but were not, around forms that should be false but weren't. Sounds, noises, filtered into him in a jumbled, incoherent mess.

_Motions_ flickered, insignificant so far as he had no idea what they were, inside the drops of time splattered everywhere, shining through first one then another, reflecting and duplicating everything that ever had been, was, and would be.

There was too much, too _much_ and yet so little inside him, warring to gain the upper hand with the speed of thought, and he had no idea which would win, or if he should want one to.

**Where is Arthur?**

**Where am I?**

**What's happening?**

**Hello?**

**What's going on?**

**I should stop talking.**

**Calm down, Merlin.**

**I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for this. And for the fact that I can't do anything, or see anything, or hear or taste or smell or feel anything.**

**Don't freak out.**

He knew there was nothing left of...something. Something was missing, something that would be able to understand this reality, these incomprehensible images running through his mind - is that what is missing, his mind? - and be able to make sense of the things and noise surrounding him.

**Okay, just keep talking...or...thinking...**

**Is that what I'm doing? Thinking? I can't stop. There's nothing else. Nothing. When I stop thinking, I am nothing.**

**Is that what it feels like to not exist?**

He was alive.

That one, small piece of knowledge glimmered inside him among the swirls of lost sensations.

Did _alive_ mean_ exist?_

It did not. He didn't exist.

But he was alive. There was a momentary flare, a flicker of confusion that wondered for an instant how that could be, but then it vanished among the images that came from a reality that wasn't his own. Or maybe they did.

**Alright, stay calm. Calm. Right.**

**I've never experienced nothing before.**

**Where is my body?**

**What? Where did that come from?**

**Well, I suppose from****_ yourself_****, Merlin, you're the only one here...in this...place.**

**Great, just what I need, talking to myself. Or, rather, thinking to myself.**

**Of course, I already do that. Apparently it's simply more noticeable when you're nothing ****_but_**** thoughts.**

**It is a good point, though. If I am nothing but thoughts, where is my body?**

**Am I dead?**

Time...

Time was meaningless as it flew by him, decades and seconds the same as they were absorbed into eternity. He breathed in time, exhaling it as it coated his lungs in an attempt to cling to him.

Why?

He felt that was important in some way. Why was time giving him these images, noises, sounds, forms? He didn't know what they meant.

If he existed, he would know, but he was only alive.

**If I'm dead, maybe all I am is a soul. Is this what it is like to just be a soul?**

**I can't be dead. I ****_can't._**

**What about Arthur? Gwen, the knights, Gaius? Who will protect them? If they die, it will be because I wasn't there.**

**Arthur isn't even king yet.**

**I can't be dead.**

A feeling ran through him, and he only noticed it now. It was comforting, familiar, as it kept him from _too little_ and stopped him from _too much_.

There was a name for it, the thing that helped him, but he felt it didn't matter, only that it was there.

Words...there were none. There were only things, the words had become meaningless and he wouldn't have been able to understand them, much less use them. He only _felt,_ and didn't comprehend.

To comprehend, he would have to exist.

**The bracelet.**

**That must be it. The bracelet. I reached for my magic, which is me, and the bracelet tried to stop me from reaching for it because that's what it does, of course, and since my magic is me, it cut me off from my body!**

**…**

**…**

**That confused even me, and I'm the one who thought of it.**

**Stop thinking with yourself, Merlin.**

**Okay, slowly, this time. I can't afford to misunderstand this.**

**The bracelet separated me from my magic.**

**I ****_am_**** magic.**

**Therefore, when I reached for my magic, I must have...put myself together with it again and the bracelet...it must have pushed me from my body because I was too closely entwined in my magic.**

**Well put, Merlin. Mental pat on the back, wherever it is at the moment.**

**Now, my problem is how to get back.**


	24. Chapter 24

**You are really going to hate me at the end of this chapter. I seem to be good at cliffies.**

**By the way, this song I made up in about four minutes, and it scares even me. Sometimes I wonder about myself...**

**Sadly, one of the nice doctors speaks Swahili and read my A/N last chapter. So now I'm back in this curious white room, and am annoyed all over again with how nobody will believe me when i tell them I OWN MERLIN, DAMMIT!**

**On the bright side, all your lovely reviews have crafted a truce between the brain and fingers, reuniting them in the common goal of milking all the reviews possible from you loyal readers. RESPOND ON!**

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By the time the group came across what Bedivere explained were the 'strings' (which, in fact, were a group of trees indistinguishable from any other and looked nothing like strings at all), Gwaine was devoutly thankful the tiny boy had come along.

The knights knew their way around a forest, as it was practically a condition to being a knight. They even knew their way around the forest around Camelot reasonably well, and it was a practical skill.

However, it was clear Bedivere was not functioning under the rules of practicality. His route was comprised of a meandering, looping path, abrupt turns, unclear markers and overall appeared to have been drawn by a blind, mentally afflicted drunkard.

Then it struck Gwaine that that was what the woodsman most likely had intended. He would hardly have wanted anyone casually strolling through the woods stumbling over his sanctuary.

Somewhere after the third sharp turn in four minutes, Bedivere began to sing to himself in a quiet but clear voice. Gwaine tuned him out at first, but found himself listening after a few minutes when he saw Elyan staring at the boy with an odd expression on his face.

_- dance up high_

_This is the battle of the mind_

_Only the strong will survive_

_Will you keep from insanity_

_Time will tell and you will see_

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life_

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

_Chains will hold you deep in hell_

_No soul left, nothing to sell_

_He's a demon, not a man_

_End it now if you can_

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life -_

"Hey, why did we stop?"

Gwaine realized with a start that he, Leon, Elyan and Arthur had stopped their horses and were gaping openly at the kitchen boy. Bedivere twisted around on the saddle to look at Arthur. "Why did we stop?"

"Ah..." Arthur stared at him for a few seconds, then glanced at the knights. He shook himself and spurred the horse into motion again.

Gwaine followed and tried to make his voice casual as he asked, "Where'd you learn that song?"

Bedivere craned his head to look at Gwaine. "One of the others. He was a poet. He taught me the song and he told me to sing it as much as I could in Camelot."

"I...see."

_One of the others._

Other captives, most likely. Other 'sick people'.

People who, it could be inferred, were not breathing anymore.

Gwaine realized the poet had apparently tried to get the woodsman's activities noticed. A small child singing of death and captivity would be asked why they were doing so, which would have prompted the child to explain about the 'sick people'.

Obviously, though, that hadn't happened.

"Did anyone ever ask you about the song?" Leon said, his thought train apparently running on a similar track.

Bedivere blinked. "No. They just look at me funny, like you did. But I promised the poet. He made me promise six times. Over and over."

Gwaine's gut churned. The other men looked faintly nauseous as well.

Arthur cleared his throat and said, "Well, you've kept your promise. That's a good thing."

Bedivere didn't speak for a moment. Then he said quietly, "Turn left here."

They weaved through the trees as quickly as possible, while Gwaine tried unsuccessfully to keep his thoughts from poisoning him.

The nameless, dead poet had painted a terrifying picture. The woodsman was clearly an assassin. From the bits and pieces the boy had implied, he was an amoral psychopathic killer, and a prolific one at that.

And he had Merlin.

Gwaine twisted the reins around his hands so tightly they bit into his flesh. He imagined them tightening around the woodsman's neck, cutting off his air and watching him turn purple in the face until he stopped twitching. Or running him through with a sword, a swift stab in the center of the chest, more than he deserved, and seeing the look of shock on his face at the protruding piece of metal.

Then there were the far, far darker fates he imagined he would dole out if they found Merlin had been hurt. He refused to think of a situation where Merlin was -

No. No, Merlin would be fine. They would find the blasted cabin, they would rescue Merlin unharmed, they would take turns stabbing the woodsman until he died in agony, and Merlin would come home to Camelot safe and sound.

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life_

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

_Days filled up with endless pain_

_Only demon is to blame_

_When you forget your wife's face_

_Then you welcome rope's embrace_

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life_

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

_Blood enough to make you sick_

_Better hope he kills you qui-_

"Stop."

Arthur's voice was sharp and abrupt, breaking the song's hypnotic melody. He was rigid on the horse, grasping the reins, if possible, more tightly than Gwaine.

Gwaine struggled to hold down the rising bile in his throat.

Bedivere froze, as if he'd been turned to granite. Gwaine saw his eyes darting left and right in rapid, jerky movements, and he seemed to suddenly be breathing twice as fast and half as deep as a few moments ago.

_Tension,_ Gwaine thought, _he feels the tension._

_No,_ he corrected himself a half-second later, _he feels Arthur's tension._

Gwaine knew Arthur wasn't reacting to the boy specifically. It was the situation he was furious with, that he was seething at. The tiny boy had just said - sung - the exact wrong thing to exacerbate the emotions, and the prince was obviously trying to hold himself in check.

Except it didn't seem as if the boy knew that.

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Bedivere scrambled to remember what he should do when this happened. The prince was angry at him, the kind of angry he had seen in his p - the woodsman that meant he was dangerous and close, very very close to hurting him.

He remembered when he would be talking too much, asking too many questions and forget about the warnings, until the woodsman would tell him, _order_ him to go get water, get out of the cabin because he was growing_ angry._

And there was that one time, that last time when he had grabbed Bedivere's wrist and held him, his face was cold and scary and he said very very quietly to _Get. Out. Now._

Then Bedivere had, because the woodsman hadn't ever grabbed him like that before and it had hurt, it hurt and it scared him how close he had been to being hurt a lot more and he had run and run until he reached Camelot and slipped away in the crowds until the woodsman couldn't find him, so he could never be found ever again.

But the prince was angry at him because he had been singing that song, the song the woodsman hated too, and he sounded sharp and scary and holding onto himself but what if he broke, if he was angry enough to break control and he was so close -

"Bedi-" There was a touch on his shoulder and he flinched violently away, and he saw rather than felt the world turn as he fell off the horse.

He hit the ground in a tangle of limbs and let out a yell more of shock than pain. There was a shouting above him, but was too mixed up to tell what they were saying as he tried to breathe right again.

Then there was a low, calming voice right next to him, and he recognized the Knight, his Knight he had found, say, "Bedivere, are you alright?"

The Knight didn't try to touch him, which was good. Bedivere concentrated on bringing his focus back, and he blinked at the Knights and prince, who were all off their horses.

He shakily sat up, and winced. It didn't hurt too bad, but it wasn't nice. "My foot hurts."

Sir Gwaine nodded, and bit his lip. He looked around the forest and, after several seconds, asked, "Do you think you'll be able to go on?"

Bedivere swallowed. The sick man needed his help, he reminded himself. He carefully didn't look at the prince as he nodded and said, very quietly so that only the Knight could hear him, "Can I ride with you?"

WIthout a word, Sir Gwaine lifted Bedivere onto his feet and let him lean on him as he tested his left foot on the ground and winced again.

Bedivere glanced up at the Knight, and then did a double take as he saw the trees around them. "We're here!"

It was like he had dumped the blood bucket over their heads. They immediately straightened, and the prince put his hand on his sword.

Bedivere pointed. "It's just over that rise. When you get to the top you see it."

They looked between themselves and then at the tiny boy. Sir Gwaine bent over and said, his eyes glued to the slight hill ahead, "Bedivere, can you wait here?"

Bedivere nodded, his terror from a few moments ago dissolving in a rush of triumph. He had done it! He had saved the sick man, and he would get help, and he wouldn't die! He would be okay!

He sat himself down against a tree, and watched as the Knights and prince moved away and crept over the hill.

Would they have to fight the woodsman? Would they kill him? Certainly, the woodsman would fight them, so they would most likely fight him back. It would be scary, because the Bedivere could tell the prince was still angry, still keeping control, but he probably wouldn't be able to if the sick man was hurt. It was hard to imagine what would happen if the woodsman was angry too, which he would be. Bedivere shuddered and hugged himself.

There was a sudden burst of yelling and loud noises from over the hill, and he jerked his head to face it, eyes wide. Were they fighting? He couldn't tell, but there wasn't the sound of swords hitting each other, something he had learned to know from his time in Camelot.

Then the prince came charging over the hill, and Bedivere could tell he was even angrier.

"It's empty," there was so much in his voice it almost made Bedivere miss the actual words as the rest of the Knights came back. The prince looked at him, and he saw tears shining in his eyes. "It's _empty_."

With no warning, the prince spun around and slammed his fist into the nearest tree.

Bedivere stared at him. "Empty?"

"Yes." Sir Gwaine sounded clogged, like he was talking through a big ball of rage and terror in his throat. He looked at Bedivere and asked, "What does that mean?"

Bedivere tried to swallow, but couldn't.

The poet's words danced through his head.

_When your throat has run red_

_And the demon's dug your bed_

_When your soul is his to keep_

_They you finally may sleep_

Bedivere felt the tears run down his face as he said, "It means he's burying him."


	25. Chapter 25

**This is rather boring.**

**I suppose it can't help but be boring. After all, I'm deprived of everything. I am literally just my conscious mind.**

**Well, my magic is here too, but it's a bit useless, seeing as there is absolutely nothing to use it on. Except myself, which I could do, but I wouldn't know what to do. Reuniting with my body would be a lot easier if I knew how to get to it.**

**Not only boring, but frustrating. Wonderful.**

**Well, progress has to be done somehow.**

**So...**

**Black. That's...all. Everything. I see black, hear black, smell black, taste black and feel black. Well. I think it's black. I suppose it's really nothing, and black is just the closest I can come to experiencing the exact nature of nothing.**

**Interesting thought, Merlin. Gaius would be proud.**

**I really miss Gaius.**

**…**

**…**

**I wonder what everyone is doing.**

**Have they realized I'm gone? I think I've been missing for several hours, at least. It's a bit hard to tell.**

**What will they do? They know about Agravaine's threat. Obviously this woodsman is an assassin hired by him. Well, maybe. With my luck, he's completely unrelated to Agravaine and is simply a bit smarter than the run-of-the-mill assassin in targeting me first.**

**Still, I'll go with the assumption he was hired by Agravaine. No need to make my life even more complicated.**

**If they realize I'm missing, they'll go to Agravaine. He has no reason to think they know he's a traitor, so his guard will be down. If they're lucky, they might be able to get information on the woodsman if they take advantage of the element of surprise.**

**And Gwaine will be with them, so most likely he'll give Agravaine plenty of...****_motivation_**** to talk.**

**So, what it comes down to is how soon they realize I'm gone.**

**...**

**Well, ordinarily, I'd be doomed.**

**...**

**Today, though, they heard Agravaine threatening to kill me. I'll take a leap of faith in assuming that might worry them if they find me missing. Even Arthur, since he knows now that I don't go to the tavern.**

**I've always hated that alibi.**

**Focus, Merlin. You really need to get out of...here.**

**Sigh.**

**Wait, what? Did I just mentally sigh? How do you even do that? I don't even have lungs!**

**…**

**…**

**Again, Merlin, focus.**

**_Focus._**** You need to get out, to protect Arthur if nothing else. It's been proven time and time again that the prat is spectacularly oblivious when it comes to danger to himself.**

**Well, actually, that could apply to someone else as well...**

**Stop thinking to yourself, Merlin. The point is, Arthur needs protection, whether he admits it or not. I protect him. Simple as that. And apparently not that hard to figure out, considering my situation at the moment.**

**I wonder if I'm already dead.**

**Wait, WHAT?**

**Where did THAT come from?**

**I'm not dead! I'm thinking, and existing, so clearly, I'm not dead.**

**But would I know it if my body was killed?**

**…**

**…**

**…**

**I don't suppose I would.**

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The small man had come up with plan. A terrifyingly simple, cruelly brilliant plan.

The sorcerer's strange mind magic made it impossible for the woodsman to do anything to him. So that was exactly what he would do. Absolutely nothing.

After all, it only took three days to die without water.

He was careful to avoid thinking of hurting the sorcerer as he maneuvered him through the forest. Even so, he pulled him along on the sled that had originally held the broken deer instead of carrying him over his shoulder, as he usually did with his targets.

Obviously, the sorcerer couldn't stay in the cabin. The woodsman couldn't strictly control every thought that came into his head twenty-four seven, and he didn't want to find out what would happen if he dreamed about hurting his victim, as he often did.

No, it was much more practical to simply move him to the Rotting Trees, where he would die slowly and safely away from the small man, ready to be buried afterward. Maybe the woodland creatures would attack him, and do the job for the small man. Unlikely, though; he doubted the repellant magic worked specifically on him. After approaching, any animals with a meal in mind would most likely be treated to the same agony. The thought pleased him.

Another reason he was moving the sorcerer popped up insistently in the back of his head, and he stubbornly ignored it.

Frankly, the young man's eyes were unsettling.

They jerked to the side with no warning, they followed nonexistent trails wandering through his field of vision, they stared at a single spot so intensely the woodsman caught himself looking at where he was to see what was so absorbing, only to be reminded the sorcerer was seeing things that either had happened or would happen. Though there had been an instant when he hauled the limp body onto the sled when the sorcerer had followed his fingers exactly. That had been...unnerving, to say the least, and the small man had only relaxed when the eyes had flickered away with the same blank gaze.

As far as the woodsman could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to whatever the sorcerer saw. Seeing the waving hand a few seconds in advance, seeing the woodsman moving to the fireplace a few minutes after it happened, watching him load the sled in real time, it was completely random.

They were almost to the Rotting Trees. There wasn't the normal woodland noises here, birdsongs and the like. Instead, the air was filled with a barely audible _humm_ blanketing the air, and the occasional harsh cry of a raven or crow.

The small man stopped for a moment, more to take it in than to rest, and he turned around to check on the sorcerer.

He was just in time to see the young man flinch, barely but clearly, on the sled. His eyes darted to the side of the path, at a spot to the left.

The woodsman froze. The sorcerer hadn't flinched before. What was this? Involuntarily, his eyes followed the staring young man's to a perfectly innocuous patch of ground, as his mind worked furiously to find out what had prompted actual movement.

After a few moments, he relaxed as a memory came to him. He remembered that patch of ground - it was where he had killed one of his targets, almost two years ago. A woman - she had screamed, high and loud when he stabbed her. If the sorcerer was seeing things out of time, it was logical to assume he could hear them too. It was natural to flinch at a sudden noise, especially a human scream.

Satisfied, the woodsman turned back around and continued pulling the sorcerer along, working busily to suppress the pleasure he felt when he thought of the young man's fate.


	26. Chapter 26

**Well... ah... he he...**

**Don't throw things! And if you must, throw them gently underhanded from twenty feet seven inches away! it will give me time to run!**

**So, sorry about the long wait...I thought I might have a problem with electrical gremilns and sacrifices to digital volcano gods, but that was cleared up. And my paranoid friend was proven wrong about the serial killer, so that's a nice ending.**

**The doctors say that reviews are feeding my imaginary self-image and delusions, so you know what that means...REVIEW ON!**

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Arthur understood the words coming out of the tiny boy's mouth, but his mind recoiled, throwing up denials as it worked frantically to deny the clear meaning of the statement. Even so, his breath was slammed out of his lungs, and abruptly he felt detached from the reality of the world, hovering above uselessly, ineffectually.

Distantly, he heard a quiet, horror-filled "What?" from Elyan.

No, no, it couldn't be true. Couldn't be _real._ Merlin couldn't just be _gone_. It was wrong, so very wrong, as the previously solid world spun and heaved as Arthur struggled to hold himself upright while leaning against a tree.

The tiny kitchen boy, tears trickling down his face, looked wretchedly at Elyan. "H-he'll be bur-ried or -" abruptly the sentence was cut off. "Buried. He'll b-be buried."

Arthur barely registered the words. He was lost, adrift, and suddenly his mind that seemed to be moving at both the speed of light and the speed of growing trees threw him into a future without Merlin in it.

No more volleying insults. No more being woken unceremoniously by blinding light and loud proddings. No more annoyingly cheerful commentary on whatever came to mind. No more ludicrous, wildly improbable explanations that Arthur had only a short while ago realized had been to cover up whatever covert protection the servant was engaging in. No more stupidly loyal actions that scared Arthur half out of his wits and made him think there wasn't a single self-preserving bone in his friend's body. No more of the strange, unwavering faith he seemed to hold in Arthur, the faith that pushed him to live up to it, to not let his closest friend down.

No more_ Merlin._

If he had been thinking, if he had just stopped plotting and planning against traitors to the crown - how stupid the crown seemed right now, so meaningless, when it didn't do a thing that helped Merlin - he wouldn't have let him go off to the kitchens, would have assigned Gwaine to keep near him, would have stayed near him himself, would have, could have, _should have..._

Because now he could do nothing but see all his mistakes, in agonizing clarity.

"Arthur?"

With an effort, Arthur focused on Leon, who wore an aura of quiet grief.

Leon hesitated, as if trying to figure out how to say words properly. "Arthur," he tested, as a thought rose up in Arthur's mind that he could count the number of times that Leon had called him 'Arthur' instead of 'sire' on one hand

Answering would take far too much effort, so Arthur just stared at Leon.

Leon nodded his head toward the kitchen boy, Bedivere, who wore a look far too old for a small boy.

"I - I can take you there."

_There._

The graveyard. Where the dead were.

_Where Merlin is._

Would he see his friend's body? Would he have to be given tangible, undeniable proof that his world had been callously ripped to shreds in the space of a heartbeat, the heartbeat that he possessed but Merlin did not?

Would he have to say goodbye?

He had to know for sure, had to make sure he was understanding, because he couldn't afford to make mistakes any more.

"Is he there?"

Arthur vaguely realized his voice was rough and unsteady, even speaking only three words. He had meant to say_ at the graveyard_ instead of _there, _but somehow the words wouldn't come out the way he wanted them to.

Bedivere nodded slowly, making sure Arthur understood, then said quietly, "Both of them."

_Both._

Merlin wasn't there alone, he knew, had known, of course. Someone else had to bury the... people who had gone.

Someone also had to have killed them.

Arthur felt an icy, diamond hard fury grow into a cold ball in his chest.

_Merlin's killer was burying him._

That was wrong. Before, when Merlin had jumped into some precarious situation from which it had seemed he might not come back from (but he always had, always, because he was Merlin and he always came back, always _lived,_ but not now, not this time), Arthur had always thought of his friend's death with (terror, of course, but he couldn't push it away no matter how many times he told himself it wouldn't happen because he knew it _could_) the knowledge that Merlin would have a decent burial, by friends who would know him and mourn his passing. Not by some hired knife who didn't care, didn't see Merlin for who he was, regarded him as a job to be done, the one who had killed him.

That was wrong.

That.

Was.

_Wrong._

"Where?" Arthur asked in an equally quiet voice as the boy. Liquid fury ran through his veins. Not the scorching, hot-blooded rage he remembered from many a time before, but something that was more powerful, calm and so icily cold it burned.

There was no answer.

Arthur turned to look at the boy.

As soon as their eyes met, Bedivere froze so completely he might have been made into marble.

Some distant part of Arthur sent him a faint warning, but it was obliterated by the still-burning fury that whispered in his ear over and over as he stepped closer to the boy that_ Merlin is dead, find his killer, Merlin is dead, he won't tell you where he is, Merlin is dead, dead, dead..._

"Arthur." Elyan's voice was sharp, cutting through the haze Arthur was in. Arthur felt a hand jerk his arm.

Arthur suddenly registered two things.

Bedivere was rigidly pressed against the tree, a look of utter, mindless terror on his face.

And Arthur's hand had been on his sword.

"Arthur," Elyan said from clenched teeth, "_stop._ I want to find this man too, but you need to stop for a moment and_ calm down._"

Shocked, Arthur stared at his hand.

**_I know him, he's only five years old!_**

A child. A _child._

Beneath the ever-burning fury, Arthur felt abruptly sick.

Silently, he stepped back, avoiding anyone's eyes.

Elyan hesitated for a moment, then crouched down at a nonthreatening distance from the boy. "Bedivere," he said haltingly, and the boy seemed to relax a fraction upon hearing his name, "can you please take us to the - place?" They all noticed the way he didn't say _graveyard,_ but nobody commented on it.

Jerkily, Bedivere nodded.

"Okay, Bedivere. That's...good." Elyan paused, then said carefully, "You can ride with -"

"Gwaine." The boy interjected.

Elyan nodded and glanced over at Gwaine. "Alright."

Gwaine stepped forward and the boy skittered to his side. Arthur could practically feel the aura of Gwaine's grief, but the knight helped Bedivere onto his horse with no comment.

They mounted again, Gwaine leading the way this time, and set off in silence for the graveyard.


	27. Chapter 27

**Okay...I PROMISE the next chapter they'll find Merlin. I just couldn't resist a little more horror.**

**Also, I'm a little nervous about the confrontation. I'm generally more comfortable writing ****_re_****action over action (you can probably tell from the first FIFTEEN or so chapters consisting solely of talking and introspection). I pledge that I will try my best, though. *determined face***

**Oh, and I've received queries as to Bedivere...well. His father likes to have complete control over people, and he's had at least one woman captive...so yeah. Two and two, all that.**

**There's a nice doctor here who lets me have access to the computer, because he's a fan of this story! How about that?**

**Ecrivez reviews, s'il vous plait!**

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Somewhere in the back of Gwaine's mind, a small part of his brain remained untouched, unaffected, carrying out the necessary functions to follow the boy's instructions. Right turn here, correct course here, it was automatic.

The rest of him, however, wasn't nearly as calm.

No matter how many times Gwaine had simply brushed off, avoided, or selectively forgot bad experiences, it started to add up, like small stones being added until they formed a heavy pile. There had, of course, been good parts, memories he liked to keep from his patchwork life. Chief among them, his time in Camelot, where he realized that maybe he could finally belong somewhere at last. Finally, the pile of stones seemed inconsequential.

Until today, the moment he had noticed Merlin missing from the kitchen.

Now, with Bedivere's tearful announcement, it was as if he was incapable of understanding what was happening. No matter how many times he repeated it to himself, it refused to penetrate. _Dead? Dead? Dead?_ The litany coursed through his head, bouncing off the walls of his skull in a cacophony of confusion as he struggled to join the concept of Merlin, energetic and cheerful and_ alive,_ with the cold stillness of death.

It simply was not conceivable.

_But it's real_, a quiet, disturbingly even voice noted in his head, _just because you can't believe it's real doesn't make it false. You couldn't believe Camelot was quite real, having an actual family instead of scarcely encountered drinking mates, could you?_

_But this isn't that._

Abruptly, Gwaine knew that if Merlin was dead, truly dead, he would leave Camelot. Camelot without Merlin, a little brother in all but blood - _to all of us, no matter how much the princess denies it, the idiot_ - would not be a Camelot he wanted to remember.

"It's up ahead." Bedivere said, an odd note in his voice.

Gwaine, though tossed about with creeping grief while the litany in his head grew louder, as if it were slowly realizing the significance of what it said, heard the tone of the boy's voice and a part of him primed in numerous bars and fights recognized the somewhat _off_ inflection of the words.

He stared down at the top of Bedivere's cap. "What's ahead?"

The boy froze for a second.

Leon and Elyan glanced, puzzled, at Gwaine. Even Arthur shifted subtly, though not taking his eyes from the forest around them.

"What do you mean?" Leon asked.

"I mean," Gwaine said, pulling his horse to a stop, "what's ahead?"

The others paused their horses, and Bedivere said "The place. Where they are."

"Which is?"

Bedivere faltered, and Gwaine was struck with a sense of realization as some of the boy's earlier words came back to him. "You never said it was a graveyard. You said he'd be -" he forced the word out even as it threatened to stick in his throat, " buried. You said it more than once." Gwaine stared at the back of Bedivere's head as dread coiled inside him. "You were convincing yourself he was. You said he'll be buried_ or_."

There was an ringing silence.

"What," Gwaine said quietly, "came after _or?"_

Bedivere shook his head.

Even Arthur was looking at the boy now.

Gwaine gritted his teeth. It was a horrifying, tragic, heart-shredding thing to have a friend - not just any friend, _Merlin_ - be gone, _dead_, but if something else happened to him, something hurting him beyond death when by any fairness he should be at rest...

There was something stirring inside Gwaine that only now took the effort to manifest. A slow, heavy anger wound its way through him, snarling as it was woken, pacing inside its restraints as it finally started to sink in that_ Merlin had been murdered._

"What." he stated in a low, dangerous voice. "Came. After. Or."

Bedivere was still as as statue, save for the nearly imperceptible shaking of his shoulders.

Gwaine refrained from grabbing the boy. That would most likely only terrify him even further. The small, even voice in his head observed he would have to reign himself in if he wanted an answer.

Gathering the entirety of his tenuous self-control, Gwaine forced the snarling _thing_ inside him back behind bars.

"Bedivere," he said in what he hoped wasn't a threatening tone.

"The Rotting Trees."

There was a brief silence.

"The -" Leon started.

"Please," Bedivere's voice was brittle. "you'll see. He buries most of the people anyways."

_Most._ Gwaine ground his teeth together. _Most_ wasn't _all._

They stood for a tense second, then Gwaine nudged his mount into moving again.

_The Rotting Trees. Most. You'll see. Most. Please. The place. The Rotting Trees. Most._ Gwaine couldn't help but feel the _thing_ lift it's head again, chafing with impatience as it wandered in the dark.

_Merlin is dead. Merlin was murdered._ The litany finally sunk in and he twisted the reins in his hands so tightly they turned white as a result of denied circulation. Somehow he couldn't summon the effort to feel it.

Had he been scared? Had he been in pain? The thought that Merlin had been hurt before he died, been perhaps hoping his friends could find him in time, was nearly unbearable. Had he been conscious? Had he given up that they would find him?

_No._ No, he knew Merlin. He wouldn't have believed his friends might not find him in time. He would have held out hope until the second he was -

Gwaine twisted the reins tighter.

This woodsman would _pay._

"Oh, _gods._"

The quiet, almost inaudible utterance wouldn't have registered in Gwaine's tumultuous thoughts if not for the utter horror filling the word.

He looked over to his left to see Elyan. Even though it was impossible, Gwaine could have sworn his face was several shades paler. He was looking up and to the right, and Gwaine followed his gaze.

To a human skeleton, hung in the tree, yellowed bones eerily still and soulless eye sockets staring down at them.

Gwaine was dimly aware their horses had stopped, and the others were staring at the skeleton as well.

His mind refused to work. There was a skeleton here, a human skeleton, hung up as if it were some kind of -

Trophy.

Some kind of goddamn _trophy._

**_H-he'll be bur-ried or -_**


	28. Chapter 28

**Ooooh...you are seriously going to eviscerate me at the end of this chapter.**

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Bedivere didn't look at the tree. Why should he? He knew what was there. One of the sick people, the people he hadn't known enough to save.

The woodsman had said he had to do it. If some of the sicker people had been buried in the ground, it could infect the ground and water around it. Bedivere had believed him. It had been smart, he'd thought, but sad and scary.

Now, though, he knew that the woodsman had been lying. It wasn't smart. It was just sad and scary.

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

Bedivere closed his eyes.

It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair at all. He had_ liked_ some of the sick people. The poet, and the fine lady, and the night boy. They had been nice. If he had known they weren't really sick, if he had been smarter, stronger, better...

But now they were dead, which meant they weren't coming back. And now the scarf man was with them. What did they say his name was? Merlin?

Merlin was the name of a bird. Bedivere tried very hard not to think of birds in trees.

The horses were stopped. They were snorting. Bedivere couldn't really blame them. Deeper in, it got scary, even if you were a horse. There weren't animals in the Rotting Trees except for crows and ravens. And bugs.

But they really did need to go forward. The woodsman buried most of the sick people, but not all. He didn't bury any of the animals he caught. Most of the things rotting in the trees were animals.

Most.

Bedivere pulled up any courage he could find, and said, "We need to walk now."

All the Knights looked at him. The prince was still staring at the skeleton with a face that looked so twisted up and complicated Bedivere knew he wouldn't be able to know what it was in a million years.

Something in the Knight's faces made him say, again, "He buries most of them."

Their faces changed so quickly he wasn't sure if his words had been good or bad.

The dark-straw-haired Knight coughed and looked at the prince. He didn't move, so the Knight took some deep breaths and got off the horse, nodding at the other Knights.

Sir Gwaine helped him down, but Bedivere yelped when his stupid twisted foot said hello again. He'd forgotten about that. Without a word, Sir Gwaine picked him up like he was a long sack of grain. Bedivere flushed, but he knew his stupid foot made it so he couldn't walk.

Stupid tall horse.

Sir Gwaine looked at the prince and said, "Arthur."

Slowly, the prince turned to look at them. He seemed surprised to see them on the ground.

The dark-skinned Knight said gently, "We have to walk from here."

It took a couple seconds, but the prince nodded, then got off his horse.

They started walking.

As they went in deeper, there were more skeletons. Deers and rabbits and raccoons and squirrels and a lot more. There were ones that weren't hung up as long, too, ones that were still being picked at by the crows and still looked like they were moving with all the bugs in them.

There were three more people.

Soon, Bedivere saw the spot he knew. It meant the clearing was just ahead, the place where the woodsman buried most of the people.

"It's ahead," he whispered, "it's just right ahead."

The Knights stopped.

"There's bushes," he went on, "Some bushes that way, and we can hide and see." he pointed to the left.

Carefully, they circled around to the bushes, thick and leafy, an crept forward, Bedivere still being held by Sir Gwaine. He noticed none of the grown-ups were breathing.

They looked out of the bushes and saw.

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_This is not happening._

It was the only possible explanation. This was not real because_ this was not happening._

He was not seeing a clearing filled with low mounds of bare earth.

He was not seeing a small man leaning against a tree of skeletons.

But most of all, Arthur was not seeing Merlin, lying still, so shatteringly still, eyes open and staring at nothing.

He had known. He had_ known,_ yet_ knowing_ wasn't the same as _believing._

Wasn't the same as_ seeing._

Wasn't the same as _understanding._

He had never realized how inadequate simply _knowing_ was.

Then Merlin twitched.

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Leon prayed to all the gods in existence he hadn't just imagined that.

Merlin had moved. Merlin had _moved._ It shouldn't have been possible, and his eyes were still blank and staring, but Leon prayed anyhow.

Then his eyes darted to the side.

Leon caught his breath and looked to his companions, to confirm he wasn't going crazy. Elyan was dumbfounded, a look of surprise edging over his features. Gwaine was all but reeling, and a slow smile was spreading on his face. Arthur was crouching, stock-still, and something Leon had only on rare occasion seen was showing.

Arthur was vulnerable.

"Alive," Gwaine breathed, hardly more than a whisper, "_he's alive_."

Leon turned his head away and felt a grin overtaking him as he looked back at the clearing.

_He's alive._

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Elyan didn't know what to say.

It was unbelievably fortunate to find Merlin alive. From the reactions he saw from the corner of his eye, he knew Gwaine was only kept from leaping up and down in excitement by the presence of the small man in the clearing, Leon was grinning as if realizing the sun was going to rise again tomorrow, and Arthur seemed to be in some sort of shock.

Elyan felt a smile of his own creep over him. While he hadn't, comparatively, known Merlin that long, the young man was a bit like Elyan imagined a little brother would be. It was enhanced by the closeness of him and Guinevere.

Truth be told, Elyan had been saddened when Merlin had been presumed dead, but he had feared far more what his sister's reaction would be. Elyan could admit to himself, however painful it was, that Merlin had been a better brother to Guinevere than he had been, even if he was trying to make up for that deficiency now.

Now, though, he felt the smile grow wider as he contemplated his sister's reaction to Merlin, safe and sound, back at Camelot, where he would soon be.

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Gwaine honestly wasn't aware of holding the little kitchen boy in his arms, or of the rotting odor still woven in the trees, or of anything at all, really.

Merlin was alive. He was less than ten yards away, he was breathing, he was conscious, and he was_ alive._

Only tenuous self-control kept Gwaine from leaping to his feet, running over, skewering the woodsman in less time than it took to blink and giving Merlin a bone-crushing hug (he'd noticed nobody ever even_ thanked_ Merlin, least of all the princess, which was thoroughly exasperating; especially considering some of the events that had recently come to light).

Except the woodsman was a lot closer to Merlin than Gwaine was, and even with the element of surprise they couldn't be sure they wouldn't put Merlin in danger through that course of action.

So, they would have to strategize.

Gwaine had always loathed strategizing.

Still, if it would get Merlin back in one piece and not strung up as a demented birdfeeder, he would consider it in a favorable light.

Merlin's eyes flickered again.

"You're bloody creepy, you know that?"

In an instant, any and all distractions were wiped away as Gwaine zeroed in on the woodsman eyeing Merlin.

The small man glared at Merlin's prone body with something bordering on wariness mixed with fear. "Creepy."

Merlin displayed absolutely no reaction whatsoever.

For the first time, Gwaine realized his friend was on a sled-like contraption, his head slightly elevated. His eyes, which had seemed blank and deathlike before they had seen him move, leading them to assume he was dead, actually were blank and deathlike, holding no comprehension to what was before him. Gwaine wasn't sure if Merlin was even_ seeing_ anything.

The hairs on Gwaine's neck rose up.

There was something wrong. There was something _very wrong._

The others seemed to sense it as well, and he felt them tense beside him.

Glaring for a moment longer, the woodsman shook his head. "I -"

He paused, appearing to remember something. He took a few steps back from Merlin, then said, "I hope you're insane in there."

_WHAT?_

Instant, _electrifying_ rage tore through Gwaine, the sheer strength of it shocking the tiny, remaining rational part of his mind.

Merlin wasn't okay. Merlin could be_ insane._ He should have seen it, should have noticed the moment he laid eyes on him, should have killed the helminth woodsman the second he saw him because_ he hurt Merlin._

"That's..." Bedivere's whisper make him automatically look down. There was puzzlement mixed with shock on his face. "That bracelet thingy, it's..."

Gwaine looked back and saw some sort of silver cuff around Merlin's right wrist. He glanced to the others to confirm, and saw the same steely determination in their faces. Arthur in particular was staring at the woodsman with a face that made his earlier interrogation of Agravaine seem downright benevolent.

"But...but that's for -" Bedivere's stunned voice was still quiet, but not quiet enough.

The woodsman whipped his head around to stare at the bushes, pulling out a hunting knife from his belt. He was half-crouched, in a classic defense pose.

Chancing a quick glance to Arthur, Gwaine knew that their advantage of surprise was shot. With eye-blurring speed, Arthur drew his sword and crashed through the bushes.

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Bedivere suddenly found his world flipped around and had the breath punched out of him. Trying to find the sky again, he wondered what just happened.

Oh. He was on the ground. Again. Sir Gwaine had dropped him.

A least it wasn't that high.

But thoughts still whirled around and around in his head, so fast he couldn't catch them before they flew away again. They were bouncing and laughing as he tried to follow them, but he was too little to get them.

_The scarf man has the silver bracelet on._

_The woodsman put it on him._

_The silver bracelet is for __**sorcerers.**_

Bedivere twisted around just in time to see the Knights reach his p - the woodsman.

_Something_ twisted the woodsman's face, and Bedivere realized what it was, from when he had been living in the cabin and saw that look only a few times.

The woodsman knew something nobody else did.

Time seemed to slow, and Bedivere saw every single detail like it was being scratched into his skull.

The woodsman shouted something, and pushed out his hand.

And the Knights went flying across the clearing as his papa's eyes flashed gold.


	29. Chapter 29

**I have no idea how to do this.**

**Really, there's absolutely no reason why I could do this. I very much doubt there are instructions to follow when this exact situation has occurred. Nobody can blame me for being clueless here.**

**Okay, my main goal is getting back to my body. After that...well. Improvisation has worked before. One step at a time.**

**Assuming, of course, my physical body is still alive.**

**Shut up, Merlin.**

**…**

**Did I just channel Arthur?**

**Focus, Merlin. You apparently aren't that good at it.**

**Focus.**

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Magic.

_Magic._

His papa used _magic._

Bedivere was struck dumb. He had seen that look on the woodsman's face before, the one where it looked like he knew something nobody else knew, but he hadn't thought it meant much. It never _did_ mean much.

Now, though, it meant a lot.

The prince jumped up almost the second he hit the ground, and Bedivere shrank back, even though the prince didn't even look at him.

Because for the first time in his life, he saw someone scarier than his papa.

The Knights got up too, but not as fast as the prince. They looked like they were_ mad._

Bedivere saw the woodsman look at the Knights, then at the scarf man - Merlin. His face twisted, and Bedivere saw him mouth the words_ "Damn sorcerers."_

He didn't actually say it aloud, but Bedivere had heard him say it before. He looked, alarmed, at the Knights, but they didn't seem to be able to read lips.

_Think, Bedivere, think!_

Bedivere screwed up his face in concentration. He brought the prince and Knights out here, so they were here because of him. That meant that if they got hurt it was his fault. If they died, then it would be his fault too.

The woodsman moved his hand so that it looked like he was grabbing a doorknob and twisted his hand, then his eyes were gold again. They looked odd. Weren't the eyes supposed to be really gold? The woodsman's looked different; a little darker. They were almost reddish-gold.

The Knights shouted, and the dark-skinned one and Sir Gwaine circled around on his right side, while the prince and the dark-straw-haired Knight went around his left. They moved quickly, but Bedivere saw they were being careful.

Which was smart. The woodsman was backing away so he was out of the space between the four Knights, and his eyes were still that strange reddish-gold. That meant he was casting a spell, right? Why wasn't anything happening?

"Step back or I snap him."

Bedivere tried very hard not to freeze up when he heard his pa - the woodsman's voice. It was the same as ever, scary and quiet and hard.

The Knights paused, and Bedivere saw they looked confused. The woodsman's actual words came to him and he frowned also. Snap?

The woodsman said in an even voice, "Right now I have hold of his mind. Let me go, or I will drive him insane."

The Knights stiffened, and a shot of fear spiked through Bedivere. Insane? He would drive the scarf man insane? Like the poet?

The woodsman stood calmly, red-gold eyes burning.

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**I suppose the first thing to do is to actually make the effort to get back to my body.**

**…**

**Great plan, Merlin. You have an admirable knack for stating the obvious. How exactly are you going to do that?**

**Well...**

**What if I concentrate? If I concentrate on getting back to my body with intensity, and I focus on it to the exclusion of everything else, and at the same time direct magic in my concentration, that could work, right? Maybe?**

**In theory, I suppose.**

**Well, the only thing left to do is to test it.**

**Literally, the only thing to do.**

**If I still had lungs, I would sigh.**

**This is annoying.**

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The woodsman's mind worked at lightspeed.

The job didn't matter anymore. Attempting to complete it from some pigheaded idea of revenge or professional honor was suicidal. The only goal now was to get away alive and intact. Using the sorcerer as a bluff was, quite honestly, the only card he had left to play.

He also had to rein in the side of him that was calling to rush forward, stab and slash and hack and spill blood, _gallons_ of blood to spray the forest floor and coat his skin and pour down his throat until he was full and satisfied, bodies littering the ground, ready to dance in the wind and his magic sated -

The woodsman caught his breath and strained to keep a calm expression on his face as he heard his own blood rushing in his ears, a sign of his magic. Losing control would only end in his death. No rage, however much bloodlust it contained, would be a match for four trained knights.

Hence the need for a bluff. Briefly, he wondered if he actually _could_ drive the sorcerer insane, but discarded the idea. His current spell would take effect soon enough. He had power.

He could wait.

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Bedivere knew the grown-ups couldn't stand still forever.

Something had to happen. The woodsman was very, very smart. He knew that the Knights cared about the scarf man. That meant they wouldn't do anything that would make the woodsman hurt him.

But Bedivere knew the woodsman.

He would hurt him anyway.

Bedivere felt tears sting his eyes. It wasn't fair. He had done his best to save the scarf man, even taking the scroll from the prince's room, which was illegal. Even the fact that the scarf man was a sorcerer didn't mean much. He was still sick, and that meant he needed he -

Wait.

A sorcerer.

The scarf man was a_ sorcerer._

Bedivere felt the blood drain from his face as the idea hit him.

Energy pumped through him as he looked at the clearing again. He was about eight yards from the scarf man. Not that far to run.

Not that far on a not-hurt foot, that is. Bedivere scowled at his leg. _Stupid, stupid, stupid..._

He had to save the scarf man. To do that, he would have to_ reach_ the scarf man. That meant running across the clearing, which he couldn't do.

_Which means he will die._

_No_. No, the scarf man couldn't die. The prince was his friend, and the dark-skinned Knight and Sir Gwaine and the dark-straw-haired Knight and the pretty lady and the big Knight were all his friends too. It was horrible to lose a friend, like the night boy and the poet and the fine lady who were all strung up in the trees. When he had learned what death was, he had cried himself to sleep.

The scarf man couldn't die.

Bedivere clenched his teeth as he heard a strange rushing sound in his ears. It was wrong, that the scarf man would die and he couldn't do a thing about it, it was wrong the woodsman would hurt him when he had already hurt a lot of other sick people.

So Bedivere would make it_ right._

He rolled over onto his knees, and stood up.


	30. Chapter 30

**Oh dear...**

**I might just ask you to kill me now, because you are not going to give me mercy after this chapter...**

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Arthur felt the liquid fury burning silently inside him. The helminth woodsman was _right there,_ right in front of him. The overabundance of adrenaline in his system nearly made him tremble, and he realized his heart was beating at least twice as fast as normal.

Melin was alive. Merlin was _alive,_ but he wasn't really here. It was one of Arthur's greatest nightmares, that someone he cared about be alive but not sane. It had happened to his father, and now Merlin might end up the same way if Arthur didn't let go the person who was threatening to do it to him. The thought brought a faint sense of nausea.

He glared at the woodsm - sorcerer. Of course he was a sorcerer. Magic, magic, it was always_ magic._ It had taken his mother's life, his sister's caring, his father's sanity. It had taken his entire family in one way or another, and it wasn't stopping there. Why couldn't it just_ leave him alone?_

The sorcerer tilted his head a fraction of an inch at Arthur. His eyes were still gold. Well, not really, Arthur realized. His eyes weren't the usual gold; they were darker, deeper, tinted with what seemed to be red.

Arthur tried to swallow, but his dry throat wouldn't let him. Red-gold eyes. So, not only was the sorcerer a madman, but he might have something different about his magic. Great.

Just great.

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He was weakening.

The woodsman felt the old, nearly forgotten strain begin to set in. Hardly noticeable, except for the spell becoming just the tiniest bit harder to hold every second that passed. He was strong, stronger than he would have been on other days. Still, throwing the knights across the clearing had been a monumental effort. Added to the extended spell he was working now, and it was no wonder he was running low.

But the spell was working. He could see the symptoms beginning to show themselves. The knights looked distinctly more weary than before, and the woodsman could detect the faint sheen of sweat on their faces. Very soon, their heads would begin pounding, nausea, rapid heartbeat and dizziness would set in.

Then he could make his escape, when they were weak. Despite the temptation to simply cut their throats, the spell was by no means a powerful one and they would all react to varying degrees. 'Not strong enough to pursue' did not mean 'not strong enough to kill a man at close range'.

Besides, he would have to release the spell long before their blood managed to actually reach temperatures high enough to kill them.

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His foot didn't hurt.

The thought, strangely, didn't seem important at all. It was like noticing the sky was blue, or the trees were around him. Just normal, like it was supposed to be that way.

Bedivere crept around the bushes, going to the right. He had to get close to the scarf man. Just running out across the clearing from where he had been would be stupid. It would probably make him die. Or the scarf man die. Both would be bad, because he was trying to not get anyone killed.

So Bedivere sneaked and was quiet so the woodsman couldn't hear him. Or the Knights too, because he could accidentally distract them and get them killed. Which would also be bad.

"I'm not going to stand here forever."

The woodsman sounded calm, which was scary. Whenever he sounded calm, he was in control of everything. Of course, when he wasn't in control he was even scarier.

"I'm getting bored."

Bored. Bored was dangerous too, because he didn't have anything to do and usually went out and came home covered in blood.

Bedivere had to go slowly, because there was a lot of sticks and swishy plants. He had always hated the Rotting Trees. There were no animals besides the big black crows and ravens that would come up close and caw at you if you stood still long enough.

"You truly think you can get away?" the dark-straw-haired Knight asked.

The woodsman raised an eyebrow. Bedivere knew that was his way of saying 'yes'.

He was almost to the point closest to the scarf man. Instead of eight yards, it was only about eight feet. Still, it was in the open clearing, and he would be running straight toward the woodsman.

Bedivere screwed his eyes shut very tight. He didn't want to. He didn't want to run out toward the woodsman, he didn't want to be the only thing that kept the scarf man from dying, he didn't even want to be here at all.

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life_

Bedivere made his heartbeat stop going so fast, and took a deep breath.

So.

He just wouldn't fail.

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Something was wrong.

Despite Merlin's frequent insistence to the contrary, Arthur wasn't an idiot. Something was wrong with him - and, from a quick glance to the knights - his companions as well. A visible sheen of sweat coated their faces, and his eyes were having trouble focusing. The nausea he had earlier attributed to the thought of letting the woodsman go was stronger now, and he felt warmer than he should, almost like he was running a fever.

Most frightening, though, was the aura of dizziness he was feeling. If needed, he could fight without vision - he didn't do that training for kicks. But loss of coordination was unprecedented.

Arthur gritted his teeth and forced back the creeping, choking fear.

The woodsman looked supremely unconcerned, his eerie red-gold eyes appearing to be miles away and possessing a dangerous sharpness at the same time. Arthur would have never thought that there could possibly be a more unsettling thing than the gold of a sorcerer's eyes, but apparently there was. The redness seemed to have - for lack of a more accurate term - corrupted the gold. The thought almost made Arthur snort with amusement. It seemed like irony of the highest quality to be confronted with magic that actually _looked_ corrupted. Most of it wasn't nearly as blatant.

The dizziness reared again, and it was all that Arthur could do to stay upright this time. The uncomfortable warmth grew hotter, as if he were standing too close to an open bonfire. Another glance at the knights showed they were suffering the same, though trying to hide it.

What was happening? There was a fuzzy, half-formed thought in the back of his mind that he felt, instinctively, would help him, but there was a blunt, heavy sensation of pain in his head, smothering any attempts to think clearly.

However, he knew enough to know that this was bad.

He would have to agree.

"Okay," Arthur was surprised at how faintly his voice came out. "Release him and go."

"Sheath your weapons." The woodsman's reply was prompt and level, as if he had expected nothing less.

Arthur focused on his breathing. It took perhaps a few more heartbeats than it should have for him to nod to the knights to comply.

Carefully, as his vision fluctuated so wildly he might have been on a ship in a tumultuous sea, he held his scabbard to put the sword away.

And, misjudging, sliced his palm open with the blade.

He hissed at the sudden pain. It wasn't a deep cut, simply unexpected. But the sudden sharpness cut through the fatigue momentarily, allowing him a brief measure of clarity.

There was a choked, almost inaudible sound.

Arthur looked up to see the woodsman staring at the blood dripping from his palm with a terrifying, naked hunger.

The woodsman snarled.

And the world suddenly exploded.

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Bedivere knew the instant he heard the woodsman snarl that he had to _go._

Without thinking, he _threw_ himself out into the clearing and ran as fast as he could toward the scarf man.

There was shouting from the Knights, and the sound of his papa screaming. Not in pain, but in rage.

_No_, Bedivere thought, though he didn't know why, _not rage. Hunger. He's hungry._

And suddenly Bedivere wanted to scream too. He pushed it away, and he reached the scarf man.

Up close, he was odd. He was tall, most definitely taller than Bedivere had thought before. And thin. Plus, he had that scarf, the red one that made the pretty lady get scared. It reminded him of blood.

He saw the bracelet, the one for sorcerers, on the scarf man's left wrist, and picked up his arm.

A yell made him look up, and he saw the Knights fighting with his papa. They were slow, and didn't look okay at all. The dark-skinned Knight and Sir Gwaine had dropped their swords, and his papa had knocked the prince down, who looked confused. The dark-straw-haired Knight stabbed his sword at his papa, but even Bedivere could see it wasn't a very good one.

Still, it made his papa roll away from it and come up crouching and snarling. He looked even worse than when he had told Bedivere to get out for the last time, and Bedivere got so scared he wanted to run away, as fast as he could until he reached the pretty lady who would hug him and stroke his hair, because he liked that and it made him feel safe.

Except he couldn't.

**Okay, I need to focus for this. Focus on my body, on going back...**

He had to bring the scarf man back, because he was a sorcerer who could fight his papa. The bracelet was stopping him, so Bedivere had to get it off.

Bedivere stared at the bracelet.

**Concentrate. Concentrate on Camelot, on your friends, on Arthur, on getting back to them...**

_The woodsman knew, saw the knights were failing, the result of his magic, but he didn't care, didn't care because there was blood, blood for the taking and he wanted it, wanted it so bad it hurt, and his magic was thirsty, oh so thirsty -_

It was small. It was small, and it wasn't that thick but he couldn't break it because he was just a little kid. A grown-up could break it, one of the Knights, but they were all fighting his papa and they couldn't.

Just a stupid little kid.

**Pour magic into it, that's it, more magic, more magic, concentrate -**

_Dodge another swipe from the steel, oh so clumsy, clumsy and failing, failing because of his spell that demanded sustenance, fuel to work and feed on, the blood dripping and splashing and sticky on the skin, skin sheltering more blood under it until he ripped it apart to find it._

_Look over to see how to move, how to take them down, and see -_

It wasn't fair.

It. Just. Wasn't. Fair.

**Ready, set -**

_The boy._

_The traitor boy._

_The boy with eyes to match his own._

There was a rushing sound in his ears, that got louder and louder and louder until -

**Go!**

_BOY._

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Three things happened at precisely the same time.

With a screech of metal, the silver bracelet was torn apart.

Merlin shuddered violently and his eyes widened in shock.

And Bedivere screamed as the woodsman's knife found it's target.


	31. Chapter 31

**I shall be honest: I have only two more chapters after this one, I'm thinking, along with an epilogue.**

**Fear not, I have it planned out. And maybe a sequel. MAYBE.**

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Agravaine woke unpleasantly, with the uncomfortable sensation of fear mixed with apprehension.

Well.

That was never good.

His thought process was muddied, and there was a blank spot in his memory before waking. That was also not good. He had to have the information, all the facts straight and a non-contradictory story that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he was, apparently, unconscious. More importantly, he had to be sure this wasn't connected to -

"Do you think they'll find Merlin?"

It was Guinevere speaking. So they had noticed Merlin was missing. But did they connect Agravaine to the disappearance?

"I have no doubt."

Gaius. That probably meant he was in the infirmary. That felt about right, considering the pounding headache he was experiencing. A hit to the head?

What had happened?

"Staring at him isn't going to wake him."

It took all of Agravaine's self control to not tense up. Warning Guinevere not to stare at him? Unless she had had a change of affections, that meant she wanted to speak with him. This was looking worse and worse.

"I know - it's just that I...I can't believe it. He - he _threatened Merlin."_

_Oh, no._

The armoury.

The damn _armoury._

This wasn't bad. This was _disastrous._

_**There's nobody here. I think we can do without the pretend for once.**_

It had been a setup. Merlin must have told them, asked for help, and set them where they could hear Agravaine plotting treason. It was a dangerously effective plan, one that Agravaine had to admit he would have been proud to have thought of it on his own. A secret meeting, getting Merlin to say a few things that made it sound like he was plotting against Arthur (or, more believably, Agravaine, since even he could admit it was damn near impossible to believe that Merlin would turn against Arthur), while his nephew listened in, severely damaging the bond between them and making Agravaine look like a concerned, loyal uncle who was regretful of the damage he had reluctantly wreaked…

But that chance was long gone now. Arthur knew he was a traitor, perhaps not to the fullest extent, but a traitor nonetheless, and he knew his uncle had arranged to have his best friend killed. It was not something Agravaine could see Arthur forgiving him for, no matter how fast he talked.

Which meant he had to get out.

But how to do that?

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With a sigh, Guinevere turned away from watching Agravaine and checked on Percival again. Gwaine had given a good punch. Percival's jaw was broken in three places and had nearly been dislocated. It was sheer luck that Gaius had deemed the breaks to be nothing major, and with a bit of luck they would heal without leaving lasting damage.

Gwen really couldn't blame Gwaine, she supposed. The second emotion she had felt - after the mind-numbing, blinding panic for Merlin - had been rage against Agravaine. Were he not already knocked out, she would have liked to give him a good punch, no matter how unladylike it was.

After all Merlin had been through - and, judging solely from his scars, it had been _a lot_ - it was unfair that right after they saw how much he really did he would be -

No, she couldn't think like that. She _wouldn't_ think like that, because it wouldn't happen. Bedivere would lead them to this woodsman, they would rescue Merlin in time, and Agravaine would be outed for the traitor he was.

Gwen shot another glance at Agravaine, this time more heated. It was still hard to believe the words he had said in the armoury, but she had no doubt they had been true, every one of them.

**_You mean you'll kill me._**

**_Yes._**

The worst thing was, Merlin sounded almost bored, like he was used to being threatened. Like it was so commonplace he actually didn't see the need to invest the effort into being scared.

Guinevere couldn't imagine ever growing so used to death hanging over you every second of the day that you ceased to care.

Then a thought occurred to her.

"Did you know, Gaius?"

Gaius looked up at her, and he frowned. "What?"

"Did you know. About…" Gwen gestured to Agravaine.

She saw the way he hesitated, and realized that scenarios were running through his mind; what would happen if he said yes, what would happen if he said no, how would she react, what other questions would she ask…

Finally, he looked at her and nodded. "I...suspected. We both did, but there was no proof. Merlin wanted to speak with him, if only just to confirm…"

Guinevere let out a breath. Then she said, quietly, "That's not all you knew about."

Gaius looked at her with wariness.

"The...scars."

Gaius' face changed, shock suffusing his features with a hint of - was that panic?

"We know about them," she went on, hoping she was doing the right thing. It was hard to pry into what Merlin obviously wanted to be kept secret, but the memory of those scars, the burn and the serket sting were all clamoring for attention. "he showed them to us, though I don't think he meant to. He said you knew." She tried to keep the sense of betrayal out of her voice. It was one thing to keep a few training accidents covered up, small cuts and bruises, but Merlin's injuries were so severe he had to have known what was happening…

Gaius closed his eyes and visibly swallowed. He was silent for a handful of heartbeats, then said in a low voice, "I…helped him as often as I could, but there was always...something. Some assassin, some creature, some sorcerer...There were days when…" here he paused, and made an obvious effort to keep talking, "when he would vanish, and I would have to say he was at the tavern or picking herbs when I knew he wasn't. Times when all I could do was hope…that he would come back safe. Usually, he does….usually."

Guinevere felt her heart breaking. Gaius looked up and seemed slightly startled to see her there.

He sat for a moment, then gave a small, sad smile. Taking a deep breath, he stood and went over to the vials of all his potions.

Guinevere thought, as she stared after him, that while Merlin had grown used to the ever-present danger of his own death, Gaius certainly hadn't.

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Agravaine felt mildly surprised.

When Merlin had told him a lot of people had already tried to kill him, he had taken it for a bluff, an attempt to intimidate and perhaps dissuade Agravaine from killing him.

However, it sounded like he had been telling the truth. The simple fact that he was still alive after what sounded like a veritable army of enemies told Agravaine three things. One, Merlin had not been lying. Two, if he hadn't been bluffing about that, it could be assumed he had meant every word in the armoury. Three, Merlin was infinitely more dangerous than he was assumed to be. After all, the army of enemies didn't disappear into thin air, and Agravaine got the feeling they wouldn't have just gone away politely after their plots had been foiled. The bumbling servant may have had a body count to rival Arthur.

Those three things made Agravaine exponentially more unsettled about Merlin's parting words. He spared a thought that it had been far easier to ignore when he had believed it was only a bluff.

Well.

If he wanted to escape from a castle where there were many, many people who would be only too glad to cut his throat, either from threatening Arthur or killing Merlin (if he was dead, which was uncertain, but he certainly didn't care to stay and find out), he had to move fast.

Opening his eyes a crack, Agravaine saw exactly what he needed. Perfect. He would have to move quickly, something he was sure would be excruciating, but there wasn't really another option. He had to take immediate control, and hoped he was fast enough.

Without warning, Agravaine' eyes shot open and he grabbed the ceramic bowl on the table near him. He raised his hand, and threw it down on the floor.

The shattering of the bowl made Guinevere and Gauis whirl around, but Agravaine leapt up, scooping the largest shard of pottery from the floor, and pulled Guinevere toward him before she could react.

He brought the shard up to her neck and growled, "Do not move."


	32. Chapter 32

Merlin could easily say that he had never been more confused in his life.

He was in a clearing. In the woods. At least, it looked like a clearing. Somewhat. There were skeletal trees with things hanging from the branches like overgrown, swollen fruit, and the grass looked like it was valiantly trying to stay green but was gradually being worn down to a dead, brownish color.

His head ached, with what felt like memories, but memories he had never had before, like remembering a woman who was stabbed and had screamed, loudly, hoping for someone to hear her, except nobody had, and an image of the woodsman scuttling across the floor of the cabin to press up against the fireplace because he was in pain, and others, many others that made his head want to burst with the abrupt stimulation.

But what grabbed his attention the most was a small boy who was screaming on the ground.

Merlin got out (or, rather, fell out) of the sled-like thing he was on, and gasped as the sudden movement sent a wave of protestation through him. There was a flare of pain on his left wrist, and he looked to see the silver cuff from before, twisted and very obviously broken. The jagged edged pressed into his wrist.

Ignoring it, he reached out to the boy, and tried to turn him over.

The boy flinched back, and screamed louder.

Merlin then saw the boy was covered in blood.

"Got him!"

With a spasm of shock, Merlin turned his head to look to his right.

_Arthur._

Arthur was here.

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With vicious satisfaction, Arthur watched as the woodsman fell. It had been quick, oh so quick, when he had been distracted by throwing something and had diverted his attention, it had given Arthur an opening just long enough to snatch up his sword and run him through. Briefly, he felt a flash of confusion as to how easily he had gone down.

Still, he supposed, even sorcerers weren't invincible.

Immediately, the dizziness relented to a manageable level. Arthur almost staggered at the change in his perception. The cut on his hand throbbed, the blood seeming oddly hot, almost burning.

Except, then, he registered the screaming.

With a start, he turned around, and his heart simultaneously stopped beating and dropped to his stomach.

Merlin was up.

And Bedivere was down.

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_It hurts, it hurts, make it stop, stop it, it hurts, make it stop because it's like fire and I don't want it, make it go away, stop it and I'm sorry, I'm sorry if I did something wrong just make it stop and I want to go back home and be with the pretty lady and just make it stop, __**make it stop…**_

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Merlin's attention was jerked from Arthur by the small boy screaming again. There was blood, a lot of blood.

Then, suddenly, he saw the boy's face.

More importantly, his eyes.

His eyes, that were colored a bright, lurid red-gold.

Merlin's breath caught in his throat.

He looked back to Arthur, who appeared to have just heard the boy's screams, and was stepping toward them both.

Merlin didn't know what was happening. He didn't know why he was here, why he had memories that weren't his, where the woodsman was, why Arthur and the knights were here, who the tiny boy was, or why he was hurt. But one thing was clear. The boy was a magic-user, and _Arthur couldn't know._

In desperation, Merlin reached out a hand to turn the boy's head so his eyes weren't showing.

And then the boy broke off his screaming and fell silent, going limp and absolutely still.

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Gwaine sprinted the short distance to Merlin and Bedivere, only a heartbeat behind Arthur. With a quick glance at Merlin, he assured himself his best mate was okay, if a little peaked-looking, but that was to be expected.

He wanted to pull Merlin into a hug, but he made himself crouch next to Bedivere. Immediately, Gwaine saw the problem. His eyes widened.

"Oh, gods."

A knife, wickedly sharp and perfect for throwing, a woodsman's knife, was embedded deep in Bedivere's right hand. In fact, Gwaine realized, the knife was embedded so deep that a good inch and a half had come out_ the other side._

Gwaine felt the nausea he had been experiencing earlier make a full return.

He heard Arthur take a sharp breath, and bark out, "Stop the bleeding!"

Bleeding. Right. There was a lot of blood, so much that Bedivere was nearly covered in it. Gwaine forced his body to respond and firmly pushed down the rising bile in his throat. He had seen injuries before, some even worse than this - but never on a child.

"What -" Merlin's voice was scratchy and rough, and he coughed. "What's going on?"

Arthur knelt down and put a hand on Merlin's shoulder, like he had to prove to himself he was real. Any other time, Gwaine would be surprised, but he figured that Arthur was understandably shaken up at the moment; and as such, his guard was down.

Finding a friend previously thought dead, then thought alive but insane, but now confirmed alive and okay was a lot to take.

Merlin looked, surprised, at Arthur's hand on his shoulder. He struggled briefly to sit up, and without a word Arthur helped him to lean against the sled. Merlin blinked, then gave a lopsided smile. Then he caught sight of Bedivere and it faded. "Who is that?"

Gwaine tore off part of his shirt and tried to find a way to wrap it around Bedivere's hand without aggravating the knife. He glanced at Merlin, and said, "Someone who helped us find you."

"You brought him with you?"

Merlin sounded aghast, and there was a note of incredulity in his voice. Gwaine winced. He couldn't really blame him, since bringing the boy along with them had led directly to him bleeding on the forest floor.

"We were running out of time." Arthur sounded as if he regretted it, but Gwaine knew that if they had known what would happen, Arthur would have brought him anyway. It had simply been the only option.

Before Merlin could reply, Arthur started to snap out orders. "Gwaine, get that tied tightly. Take my horse and bring him to Gaius before he bleeds out." Glancing at the wound and grimacing, he added, "Try not to bring him around. It's better if he's unconscious.

"Can you walk, Merlin?"

Merlin blinked again and said, "I think so."

Gwaine blocked out the rest of the talking, and finished tying the strips of shirt around Bedivere's hand. Scooping him up, he flashed back to when he had carried the boy because his ankle was hurt. Now it was a much more serious cause.

Gwaine ran to where the horses waited, and hoped he would be fast enough.


	33. Chapter 33

**Yes! I AM BACK!**

**A million, billion apologies, faithful readers. I was struck with the most horrifying affliction - WRITER'S BLOCK. Yes, the dreaded malady struck me down. But I persevered, and conquered the accursed thing.**

**(Sigh. And, y'know, school started, so I've been a bit bummed. That didn't help.)**

**BUT, anyway, enjoy the wondrous tale I have displayed, solely for you, loyal readers!**

**KEEP CALM AND WRITE REVIEWS!**

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Merlin lasted until they were about halfway back to where the horses were.

Abruptly, he sagged against a handy tree. Then his legs promptly gave out.

"Merlin?"

Merlin blinked and stared at Arthur, who sounded a lot more worried than he had ever been, barring life-and-death situations.

He struggled to speak. " 'M...tired."

It was the closest he could come to finding an adequate word to describe it. What he really felt like was that he wasn't entirely there, not out of his body but not completely inhabiting it, either. He had the uncomfortable thought that he would float away, be locked back into that nothingness again and too disconnected to find his way back. Could that really happen? Could that silver cuff weaken his soul's hold on his body?

Adrenaline was a funny thing, he thought fuzzily. It was useful while it lasted, but the crash wasn't very pleasant.

Merlin's vision blurred, and he realized that maybe he actually was tired as well right before sleep claimed him.

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Arthur looked, bewildered, at Merlin.

He was, quite clearly, simply sleeping. Nothing indicated another enchantment, drug or anything suspicious. In fact, the only thing that was different from any other slumber was the fact that he had fallen asleep in two seconds flat in the middle of the forest.

After making certain that Merlin was perfectly fine, Elyan voiced all of their thoughts. "Er...what was that?"

Arthur tried to think of a reason for Merlin's sudden nap, and spoke slowly as he attempted put together the pieces he knew and the pieces he guessed.

"The…woodsman…" he said, unconsciously touching his sword to reassure himself the man was really dead, "he had a hold on him, somehow. It put…pressure on his mind, maybe, and…now he needs to…recuperate?"

It was more of a question than an explanation, but the more he thought about it, the more Arthur realized it was a valid theory. Who knew what kind of enchantment it had been, or how harmful.

Elyan nodded, and Leon looked thoughtful.

Arthur sighed, and looked anxiously at Merlin. He had seemed fine, but what if there was some kind of delayed damage? Something that would hurt his mind, drive him insane like the woodsman had promised?

Arthur swallowed his fear and shoved those thoughts to the back of his head. Nothing would change if he worried about _what ifs_. The only thing to do was wait and see.

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Gwen realized, distantly, that she was frightened. However, it was more of a passing observation, a side note. She was more concerned with taking action to keep her throat from being cut rather than being hysterical about it. That could come later. There was a brief thought of shock - hadn't Agravaine been asleep? - but that was pushed aside as well.

Acting instinctively, Gwen let her muscles go completely lax.

Agravaine was unprepared to have his hostage turn into a lump of dead weight. He grunted as she fell to the floor, the shard of pottery scraping her neck.

Apparently, he wasn't quite at full strength. He whirled around and sprinted out the door.

Gaius was by her side in an instant. "Gwen, are you -"

"I'm fine," she said hastily, "follow him!"

Gwen pulled herself to her feet, gathered her dress and ran outside Gaius' quarters. She looked wildly to either side, and made a snap decision. He would want to get out of Camelot as quickly as possible, and so would take the shortest route out of the castle.

She ran down the left corridor, hearing Gaius try his best to keep up with her.

Agravaine couldn't go free. What he had done was unforgivable. Normally, Gwen wasn't a violent person. However, when it came to threats against those she held close, all bets were off.

She skidded around a corner and ran facefirst into a maid carrying laundry, scattering bedsheets all over the floor.

"Oh, my -"

"I'm so sorry -"

Their exclamations overlapped in a cacophony and they broke off uncertainly. Gwen frantically scanned ahead of her, hoping to catch a glimpse of Agravaine as he rounded a corner.

Nothing.

"Was Lord Agravaine just here?" Gwen asked the maid, who was looking, dismayed, at the mess of bedsheets on the floor.

"Eh?" she sounded slightly annoyed that Guinevere hadn't offered to help clean up, but replied, "Yes, he went that way just a few seco-"

Guinevere didn't hear the rest of it, as she flew down the corridor the moment the maid had pointed.

Her stupid dress kept her from running at a full sprint, something she often hated about wearing them. Had she had an ordinary life, it might not have been too bad, but instead she chased traitors to the crown through a blasted maze of a castle. A dress was not the ideal outfit for that.

Even with the dress on, Gwen managed to reach one of the doors that led to the courtyard. She threw it open and rushed out -

To find only Gwaine dismounting from a gasping horse, his movements jerky and bordering on frantic.

Gwen stopped dead.

Gwaine was back. Gwaine was the _only one_ back.

Everything was wiped from Gwen's mind as she zeroed in on one single thought.

_He is covered in blood._

The entire front of his shirt was splattered with it. Distantly, she remembered that they had been in such a hurry they had left their armor and chainmail behind. There were a quite a few smears on his face, and his hands and forearms were coated in blood. And, just from looking, _none of it was his._

She made a choked sound.

_Arthur. Elyan. Merlin. Leon._

_Oh gods, what happened?_

Gwaine looked up and caught her eye. "Guinevere," he called, voice urgent.

For one crazy, wild moment she wished time would stand still. Then she wouldn't have to hear whatever he said, the simplest explanation for coming back alone, painted with blood. Her heart thudded louder in her ears, treacherously reminding her that couldn't happen.

Gwaine saw the expression on her face, and looked puzzled for a moment. Then he gave a start, and looked down at his shirt.

He seemed surprised, as if he hadn't even noticed it before. Finally he seemed to understand Gwen's terror.

"They're okay," he hastily rushed out, "They're all okay, but the boy needs Gaius_ now."_

It took a moment for her to comprehend his words, and once she did she almost collapsed with relief. Until the second part of his sentence registered, and she focused on the small bundle that had been draped over the horse's back.

There were the sound of footsteps behind her, and Gaius appeared, shuffling as fast as his old bones would let him. He caught sight of Gwaine, and stopped dead.

Guinevere saw the same fear she had felt in his eyes, the obvious conclusion. Gwaine saw it as well, and he repeated his earlier assurance. Without waiting for a reaction, he turned and heaved the small boy off the horse.

Gaius was immediately by his side, wincing as he saw - oh gods, a _knife,_ a knife stuck _straight through_ Bedivere's hand.

She felt sick all of a sudden.

Then she remembered the reason she had come to the courtyard in the first place. Making a snap decision, she strode forward, pushing the nausea back to rest with all the other distracting motions until she could deal with them.

"Let me."

Gwaine didn't argue. As she took Bedivere from him, she was struck by how light he was. Were children supposed to be this small? He looked more like he was three instead of five.

_Who knew such a small boy could have so much blood?_ she wondered.

Wrenching her attention from Bedivere, she addressed Gwaine. "Agravaine escaped not two minutes ago. He's most likely headed towards the city gates. Could you -"

Gwaine's face abruptly went stone-cold. He nodded once, and sprinted away toward the gates.

Guinevere held the tiny boy close as she and Gaius shuffled at top speed back to the physician's quarters.

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Merlin was dreaming.

It was oddly disconnected, as if he were a spectator more than a participant. He had a vague feeling that that was true.

It wasn't like before, in the Nowhere (that was what he had decided to call where he had been, when he was cut off by the cuff). Now, he could see and hear things, though strangely enough he didn't feel anything.

He was in the forest.

Well.

Not exactly.

There were trees, and ground, but they were dead, browned and skeletal. He was reminded of the clearing where he had woken. This wasn't there, though it looked like somewhere very near there.

_- it's your life_

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

He almost started when he heard the song. It was a soft melody, sung by what sounded like a child.

Merlin looked around to see another strange sight. The woodsman was not twenty feet away, and he was climbing a tree.

Merlin watched him. He didn't feel scared. When he thought about it, it made no sense, but he simply knew that the man couldn't hurt him. He was a ghost, insubstantial, and he doubted the man could even see him.

He looked to his left and was unsurprised to see the small boy who had been screaming earlier sitting against the brittle trunk of a tree. He was the one who was singing, in a quiet voice.

_Blood enough to make you sick_

_Better hope he kills you quick_

_Or he'll keep you just for fun_

_Break your legs so you can't run_

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life_

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

_Nothing living here should be_

_You'll tear your own throat out, you'll see_

_Freedom is naught but a lie_

_When hope is gone, you wish to die_

_Woodsman's waiting with his knife_

_If you fail, it's your life_

_Lose yourself up in the sky_

_Rope will make you dance up high_

_When your throat has run red_

_And the demon's dug your bed_

_When your soul is his to keep_

_Then you finally may sleep_

The boy went quiet.

Merlin looked at him. It was hard to tell, but he seemed younger than when he had been in the clearing. Even smaller.

The forest shifted.

He saw Agravaine.

He was running through the forest, which was, Merlin noted, another part of the dead woods.

Merlin watched the traitor stumble, and look over his shoulder fearfully. He didn't stop, however, and raced as fast as his legs could take him.

Merlin watched, a spectator, as he dreamed. Or perhaps, he thought, _remembered._


	34. Chapter 34

**I believe my earlier assurance must be retracted. After this chapter, there will be another chapter and then an epilogue. This time I'm certain of it. Well. Eighty percent certain.**

**GUESS WHAT GUESS WHAT GUESSWHAT!**

**I AM ALMOST AT 1000 REVIEWS!**

**(Even the nice doctors are impressed!)**

**CONTRIBUTE, I DEMAND YOU!**

**And, by the way, I'm reading The Sandman. Wonderful comics, amazing storylines, and completely loopy. Blame that for this dream...chapter...thing...**

**I like writing dreams. The laws of reality are so constricting.**

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It was dark.

Bedivere hated the dark.

Then he noticed it wasn't completely dark. He could see something. Two somethings, actually.

The first was a tree.

The second was a path.

He blinked and looked around more, but that was all there was. He was standing on rock. The path and the tree were right in front of him, the tree on his right and the path on his left.

It was very strange.

Bedivere shuffled a bit, and looked down in surprise to find his shoes missing. For the first time he felt a little annoyed. They weren't the best shoes, but they were his, and now they were gone and he was barefoot.

He looked at the tree and path again.

The tree was tall. The tree was _very_ tall. Bedivere realized that he couldn't see the top, even if he bent his head way back. It was a tree with needles, and branches sticking straight out. It looked like it could be used for climbing. Maybe he was supposed to climb it.

Bedivere frowned. Where had_ that_ come from in his head? Trees were for dead people.

He looked at the path. It went away from him, and he couldn't see more than a few feet after it started. It looked like it went down, and - he squinted - it was…muddy?

Stepping forward carefully, he looked from the tree to the path again. There was something he was missing, he was sure of it -

Then he smelled it.

In Bedivere's entire life, he had smelled meat that crackled and roasted over the fire, soups that almost fed him on scent alone, herbs that made everything taste so wonderful, spices that made him sneeze, wines that had sharp scents that tickled his nose, ales that smelled like honey, and every wonderful smell the forest had.

This scent made him forget all of those.

Bedivere's eyes widened.

It smelled…almost familiar, but if he had smelled it before it wasn't the same. This was _amazing_ and _wonderful_ and he wanted it _so bad._

It came from further down the path.

Bedivere jumped onto it, and his feet squelched in the mud. He looked down, distracted from the whatever-it-was for a second. There wasn't that much mud, more like a thin layer. Bedivere grinned and squished his feet around.

The smell got stronger. He lifted his head up and looked at the tree again. It was odd, but he felt he really should climb it.

Then, however, the smell got even stronger and he turned his head back and stepped forward. The path was very steep. He needed to be careful not to slip. That would be -

Actually, maybe wouldn't be bad. Mud was fun to play with.

Bedivere pushed away thoughts of the tree and ran down the path. The smell got stronger and stronger, until he could almost taste it in his mouth. Even the ghost-taste of it was better than anything he had ever eaten.

The mud got thinner and wetter until he was splashing through puddles and it was more slush than mud. The path was easy to run down, down, and he knew that the he could have what was smelling so good soon, which was good because he was hungry, so hungry he didn't know why he hadn't noticed it before and his tummy was growling that he needed to eat, needed to eat not just anything but the wonderful smell because _only_ that would be good enough and he would have it, have so much that he would have it _all_ until there was none left for _anyone else_ because it would be all _his -_

Bedivere tripped.

He flew head over heels, tumbling down the slushy path facefirst. He shouted, maybe, and felt himself plowing through the puddles and slush-mud and getting covered with mud all over and the world turning in dizzying circles until he stopped.

He coughed.

Maybe he shouldn't run.

Bedivere tried to think. What was he doing?

Oh. Right. The smell.

Bedivere sighed. There was something in the back of his head, something about his ankle, that said_ you shouldn't be able to run,_ but it was a tiny voice. He could ignore it.

He pulled himself up so that he was sitting, and felt that his hands were covered in wet slush-mud. He glanced down at them and -

His hands were red.

Bedivere jerked back and gaped at his hands. They were _red,_ and wet, and he saw his feet and legs and arms were red as well, and it was on his clothes and it was everywhere -

He froze.

He looked closer at the path.

The slush-mud and puddles weren't made of water.

They were made of blood.

Bedivere frantically looked around, for what he didn't know. He stumbled to his feet and turned around -

but the path didn't stretch backwards, only forwards, and the tree was gone.

Bedivere couldn't help it. He let out a sob.

Except…

The smell was back.

It was stronger than any other time, clearer. And for some reason, it both scared and comforted Bedivere.

He knew what it was now.

Slowly, Bedivere reached out his hand and dipped it in a puddle.

He pulled it back and stared at the handful of blood.

He really was very hungry, and it smelled _so good…_


End file.
